Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Coordination Committee’s Deputy Convener, Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, announced a peaceful `day of mourning’ on Friday across the county to protest against the extra-judicial killing and brutal murders of the party’s workers.
He appealed to all the people belonging to different walks of life, particularly businessmen, industrialists and transporters, to extend their voluntary cooperation in observing the peaceful `day of mourning’ so as to voice raise their voice against the brutal murders and judicial killings of the sons of Karachi -- Muhammad Asif, Muhammad Hussain and Muhammad Muslim.
The MQM leader was speaking at an emergent news conference along with the Coordination Committee’s members, Aamir Khan, Kunwar Naveed Jamil, Aslam Afridi, Ahmed Salim Siddiqui, Khalid Sultan and Nisar Ahmed Punhwar.
Lashing out at the acts of extra-judicial killing, Dr Siddiqui said that it must be told that which law and the constitution permitted the law-enforcement personnel to arrest innocent citizens and thereafter dump their mutilated bodies after resorting to worst kind of torture under their custody.
He said that the law-enforcement agencies acts of indulging in such heinous crimes amounted to pushing the entire nation towards wall and deplored that a similar pattern than that of Baluchistan where Baluch youths were initially shown missing and after a few days their mutilated bodies were dumped had now been initiated against the workers of MQM.
The Coordination Committee’s Deputy Convener appealed to Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaurdhry to take immediate notice of the unlawful arrest of MQM workers – Muhammad Asif, Muhammad Hussain and Muhammad Muslim – at the hands of law-enforcers and their subsequent custodial deaths and, thus bring an end to the process of pushing MQM towards wall through an unannounced operation.
Deploring that the MQM with a view to apprising the Chief Justice of the apex court had adopted all legal and constitutional measures by filing petitions about the party’s missing workers, Dr Siddiqui asked the Chief Justice to inform the party what measures it should take to apprise him about the atrocities being committed against the MQM workers.
He said that the worker of MQM Landhi Sector’s Unit-84, Muhammad Asif, s/o Abdul Basit, was whisked away by law-enforcement agency’s personnel from Karachi Cantonment station upon his arrival there from Faisalabad on April 20, 2013 and his mutilated body was found today (Thursday) after two months at Gulshan-i-Hadeed.
He said that on Wednesday, two more MQM workers, Muhammad Hussain and Muhammad Muslim, affiliated with MQM’s Qasba-Aligarh and Organi Sectors, respectively, were brutally murdered whereas a number of party workers had been kidnapped and killed in the last couple of weeks by target killers and gangsters, besides the whereabouts of the party’s eight missing workers was still unknown and whether they are alive or dead.
Moreover, several other MQM workers including S M Arifullah, Ajmal Biag, Aamir Shaikh, Adnan Farooqui, Faisal Malik, Yasir Iqbal, Syed Fasahat Ali, Muhammad Babar Bhutta, Waqas Ali, were gunned down, he said, deploring a number of party workers were being subjected to torture in the official torture cells.
He regretted that on the one hand, killing of MQM workers at the hands of law-enforcers was continuing unabated and, on the other, infamous gangsters were continuously indulging in heinous crimes of issuing extortion slips to industrialists, businessmen, shopkeepers, transporters, doctors, lawyers and other well-to-do people and the threats of dire consequences.
The MQM leader asked the Rangers, police and other law-enforcers that what was the justification of their presence in the city when frequent killings of innocent people was going.
At the outset, the Coordination Committee’s Deputy Convener appealed to the Chief Justice of the apex court to take suo motu notice of brutal killings of MQM’s workers – Muhammad Asif, Muhammad Hussain and Muhammad Muslim so as to provide justice to the members of bereaved families.
He also urged the human rights organizations to raise their voice against the inhumane treatment meted out to the workers of the MQM in official custody.
He also appealed to the people at the helm of affairs to immediately bring an end to the extra-judicial killings of MQM workers.
Earlier, he appealed to party workers to hoist black flags at their houses and offices on Friday to observe the day of mourning, arrange Quran Khwani for the departed souls of MQM workers and pray for the early recovery of the party’s missing workers.
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