SOS -- LIVES OF INNOCENT WOMEN IN DANGER
MORE THAN 150 MOHAJIR WOMEN BELONGING TO THE MQM SEVERELY BEATEN, HUMILIATED AND UNLAWFULLY ARRESTED BY KARACHI POLICE IMPORTED FROM PUNJAB
11 September 1999
Pakistan time: 6.05 p.m.
Several women who were badly beaten at Shahrah-e-Quaideen, have reached Nine Zero. Due to severe torture inflicted upon them by the Police and other law enforcement agencies, they are under acute trauma and are in a state of shock. More than 150 women members of MQM have been arrested and taken away in armoured personnel carrier no. SP 5202. Their whereabouts are unknown. (Further details of these arrests are awaited)
It is strongly feared that they will be further subjected to severe torture and might even be extra-judicially executed.
Police have now resorted to heavy shelling at the public meeting point at Sharah-e-Quaideen and its adjacent areas within the radius of one square mile. The teargas shells have been reported to fall within several homes in the locality of Tariq Road, PECHS Blocck-2 and Block-6. Hundreds of area residents including men, women, children and elderly people have been injured as a result and due to the cordoning off of the area these injured people cannot be provided first aid or taken to nearby hospital. Furthermore, several hundred MQM office bearers, workers and supporters have been arrested so far.
We earnestly request the international community, Secretary General of the United Nations, international human rights organisations, the President of Pakistan, Chief of the Army Staff and the Chief Justice of Supreme Court of Pakistan to use their good offices and urgently intervene on SOS basis to save the lives of these innocent Mohajir women, who are at present at the mercy of ruthless police in Karachi.