July 7, 2026

By Xari Jalil

LAHORE

The death of an MQM-A worker in Hyderabad Central Jail last week has renewed longstanding allegations that party workers are being systematically targeted with fabricated terrorism cases and subsequently being denied medical treatment in custody, a pattern the party says has ended up in killing at least 13 of its members since 2013.

Muhammad Saeed Gaddi, alias Saeed ‘Muhajir,’ died on July 5 after what his lawyer and family describe as days of medical neglect despite repeated complaints to jail authorities. His death is the latest in a string of cases MQM-A has flagged over the past decade, though rights groups and officials dispute how much of the pattern reflects targeted persecution versus broader dysfunction in Sindh’s anti-terrorism courts and prison system. The MQM-A Coordination Committee, whose headquarters are in London, has called Gaddi’s death “an extrajudicial custodial killing.”

Case details of Saeed Gaddi

Saeed was picked up in March in a case registered against him under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) at the Pinyari police station (FIR No. 48/26), under Sections 123-A, 341, 427, 147 and 149 of the Pakistan Penal Code, along with Section 6/7 of the ATA. He had been facing trial under the case.

The MQM Rabita Committee released a statement saying the FIR was fake. “On 19 March 2026, a false, fabricated and politically motivated FIR was registered against Saeed Muhajir along with some other workers,” said the statement. The statement also said that on 27 March 2026, when Gaddi and other workers appeared before Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) No. 1 at Central Jail Hyderabad for a hearing, he was abducted along with eight other workers.

“After keeping them missing for several days and subjecting them to severe torture, on 14 April 2026, he was produced at the police station and handed over to jail custody,” the party’s high-level committee claimed. It added that during the abduction, Gaddi — an elderly man with heart disease, diabetes, and skin ailments — was subjected to severe torture.

Family members say they repeatedly submitted requests to the jail administration for medical care and examination, but received only negligence and indifference, according to the family.

Hyderabad-based lawyer Shakeel Zai Advocate, who works on MQM cases, told Voicepk this was not the first such incident.

“Workers of the MQM-A, since the last eight to 10 years, are being targeted and fake and fabricated cases are being slapped against them,” he said. “More than two dozen FIRs have been filed in Hyderabad over the last 10 years, in which party workers appeared and were even acquitted,” he claims. “At present, there are five cases under investigation, including one from Hyderabad’s PS-4 Police Station Crime No. 148/2024 and Crime No. 8/2025. Similarly, there are FIRs registered in the City Police Station and one in the Cantonment Police Station — the latter relating to a demonstration in which party workers participated on the 26th, 27th, and 28th. An FIR was also registered against MQM and its workers in this matter.”

Saeed’s lawyer speaks out

Advocate Zai said FIRs in Gaddi’s case were registered at the Phuleli and Pinyari police stations on March 18 and 19 respectively. “About 53 MQM workers were nominated,” he said. “However almost all of them obtained bail. As you know, when an FIR is registered, anyone who is in the vicinity can also be arrested.”

Zai said the ATC now functions from inside the jail premises. “Earlier, the ATC No. 3 used to be located in the G.O.R. Colony,” he said. “That court was closed there and replaced by a narcotics court. Now the entire ATC has shifted inside the Central Jail. ATC-2 was already functioning there, so ATC-1 was merged into ATC-2. Now the procedure is that entries are made at the main gate, and then one has to walk about 500–600 feet before reaching the jail area, with the court located a little further ahead. Everyone entering is recorded there, so anyone who comes and is arrested can be later identified.”

According to Zai, about 12–15 party workers were to be given pre-arrest bail. “We had an event on Friday, 24 March. The party workers gathered at the Midway Hotel opposite the Central Jail before going to court,” he said. “Law enforcement agencies and the police who were already present saw them and began to chase them and arrest them. During this operation, about eight party workers were arrested, following which they were kept missing for about 18 days. Finally on the 15th they were shown as being arrested in connection with the FIR in the Pinyari Police Station.”

Zai said the arrested men were then handed over to police and remanded and released in court on the 16th. Among the group was Saeed Gaddi, son of Sardar Muhammad, along with Abdul Rashid, Asif, Imtiaz, Faraz Durrani, Arif, and three others.

“Since they were in jail, we filed a request for bail in the Hyderabad ATC,” Zai said. “The related judge was a Hyderabad Sessions’ Judge. Despite the FIR being baseless and the relevant sections not being proven, even then our application was dismissed.” After the dismissal, the group filed in the Sindh High Court, but Zai said no hearing date was given.

“Syed bhai had been sick for a long time,” he said. “Nowadays, in Hyderabad, the heat is very severe. There is no electricity in the jail for 18 hours. There is no drinking water, and the prisoner barracks are small and cramped. Hyderabad Central Jail has a capacity of around 1,500–1,800, but there are more than 3,000 prisoners, because of which there is a lot of difficulty. His repeated complaint that he was sick was made to the Jail Supervisor, but he was only given some paracetamol,” Zai said.

“In the jail, there are no medicines, no ECG ward, or any good healthcare facilities,” he continued. “On Saturday the 4th of July, when his son Babar went to meet him, he could see his father was not well because of the heat.”

The jail administration, Zai said, had promised to provide Saeed healthcare, but it does not appear to have happened. An ECG was recorded at 3 a.m., meaning the inmate was taken outside the jail, according to Zai. “The procedure to open the cell and remove the patient takes around half an hour, and for a person in such a condition, even one minute is more than enough,” he said. “By the time Saeed was taken out, it was almost night. We have the video, but his condition in the ambulance was that of a dead person — he had a mask on, and possibly very low pulse. If he was in this condition, the jail authorities should have immediately called his family members to take him to the hospital. They were not told until morning. What would have happened if he had died inside prison?” Zai said the body was handed over to the family by a magistrate at around 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, July 5.

“On June 22, we submitted their application again for bail, but when they came out from inside the jail, they were arrested again from there in the same manner,” Zai said. “Seven associates were arrested in this incident; three have returned, but four are still with the law enforcement agency and are missing, including Abdul Majeed Rajput, Hasnaat Ahmed, Iqbal Arain, and Zakir.”

Zai said five cases are currently under trial in the ATC involving around 53 MQM workers across different FIRs. “For the past six months there has been no judge appearing in this court. People have been waiting for a year and a half to two years for their case hearings and bails.” When a Sessions judge dismisses a case and it moves to the High Court, hearing dates are typically set a month to a month and a half out — a delay Zai attributes to court backlog rather than MQM-specific targeting.

A broader pattern

MQM-A has documented what it describes as a decade-long campaign against its workers. According to figures compiled by the party itself, at least 13 members have died in judicial custody since 2013, including Naeem Akhtar, who died in August 2024.

Akhtar, 50, died on August 12, 2024, at Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK). While the medical report listed the cause of death as cardiac arrest, his widow said he had been suffering from a mysterious condition that had left him barely able to speak. Akhtar had been picked up by Rangers in March 2019 from his home; according to his lawyer, he was made to sign a confession under duress, after severe torture, implicating him in terrorism cases and the killing of a political rival. He and seven others were charged under Sections 21, 34, 111, 112, 113, 114, 302, and 324 of the Pakistan Penal Code, along with 7-ATA, and shifted to Karachi Central Prison as under-trial prisoners.

In a letter written by overseas MQM supporters and obtained by VoicePK, the party claims thousands of workers have been accused in fabricated cases across Sindh’s prisons, subjected to torture, and denied medical treatment in custody.

More recently, several individuals were arrested in Karachi allegedly for participating in a rally in support of Altaf Hussain. The FIR invoked Sections 153-A and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code, nominating 11 people, alleging they were chanting slogans and carrying flags reading “jiye Altaf” and “48th foundation day APMSO.” MQM said the arrests occurred during a raid on an office on I.I. Chundrigar Road that it says has “no link to MQM or its activities.”

Political motive?

Nida Tanweer, HRCP’s Sindh Regional Coordinator, raised questions about whether MQM workers are being held accountable, or targeted. “We have received many reports including last year about their party members being abducted,” she said. “Till now we have not termed some of them an abduction — we are referring to them as detentions, because they are picked up and then after interrogation released. The main question that is being looked into is where their funds are coming from. However there are other cases such as the one where Nisar Ahmed Panhwar has been abducted. In this context we wrote letters to the Sindh government as well as the IG Sindh. From the government we received no response. But the IG told us the police did not have Panhwar in their custody and a Joint Investigation Team was formed to investigate. Nisar Panhwar was picked up more than a few times in the recent two or three years.”

Asked whether she saw political motive behind the pattern, Tanweer said: “Isn’t it obvious? They don’t want MQM to be back in power?”

Her account complicates MQM’s framing in one respect — HRCP does not characterize most of these cases as abductions, but as short-term detentions tied to scrutiny over party financing — while corroborating that Panhwar’s case, at least, remains unresolved even at the level of the Inspector General of Sindh.

Voicepk reached out to the Hyderabad Jail administration and Sindh Home Department for comment on the allegations of medical negligence in Gaddi’s death and the broader pattern described above. Neither had responded by the time of publication.

MQM condemns

Altaf Hussain, MQM’s leader in London, was quick to condemn the prison death, claiming Saeed and others were targeted because of their party allegiance. “Previously, relief activities were conducted under MQM’s welfare institution Khidmat-e-Khalq Foundation for the deserving, and now this chain continues through Wafa Foundation. On the occasion of the last Ramadan Mubarak, before Eid al-Fitr, Muhammad Saeed Gaddi, along with other companions in Hyderabad, distributed rations, clothes, and other relief materials among the needy and destitute. As a reward for this, on March 19, 2026, the police registered a false terrorism case against Muhammad Saeed Gaddi and 8 other workers, claiming that these people were chanting slogans against Pakistan,” he wrote.

The MQM central leadership separately characterized the death as an extrajudicial custodial killing, alleging criminal negligence by the Hyderabad Jail administration, jailer, and medical officer. “In the past as well, numerous MQM workers have been pushed to the jaws of death by depriving them of treatment, medical aid and medical examination facilities in various jails across Sindh,” said Hassaan Butt, a Coordination Committee member. “This is a grave violation of basic human rights, the Constitution, law and the demands of justice.” The Committee has appealed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan, the Chief Justice of the Sindh High Court, and human rights organizations to take notice.

Nisar Panhwar’s disappearance

Separately, MQM has been raising the case of Nisar Ahmed Panhwar, a prominent, elderly former Member of the National Assembly, who his son says has never faced formal charges. “He was picked up one day before during election days with my brother Mohsin, released after some time, and then again picked up,” said Mansoor Panhwar. “The second time they picked him up was from a random location and he has still not returned. It has been 198 awful days for us. My father is elderly and he should have access to his family wherever he is. We should be told why he has been picked up like this.”

As Tanweer noted, HRCP has raised Panhwar’s case directly with the Sindh government and the IG Sindh, receiving no government response and a denial of custody from police, with a Joint Investigation Team reportedly now examining the matter.