400 MQM workers killed in two years, claims Mashhadi
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement has claimed that its 400 workers, among them legislators, have lost their lives in targeted killings and custody over the past two years.
The claim was made by MQM Senator retired Col Tahir Hussain Mashhadi in an adjournment motion submitted to the Senate Secretariat seeking a debate on the alleged victimisation of his party by law-enforcement agencies.
The senators through the motion also drew the attention of the house to the killing of party activists and office-bearers in Punjab.
Talking to Dawn on Thursday, Mr Mashhadi termed the ongoing operation in Karachi “a complete and utter failure”.
He alleged that despite tall claims by police and Rangers about the arrests and killing of criminals, incidents of targeted killing, bank robberies, murders and kidnappings for ransom continued to take place in Karachi on a daily basis.
When asked about the authenticity of the claim regarding the killing of 400 MQM workers, the senator said that anyone could count this by going through newspapers published over the past two years.
He alleged that police and Rangers had made it their routine to pick up 100 to 150 young people in various parts of Karachi and release 80 per cent of them at night after receiving money from their parents and other relatives.
Mr Mashhadi alleged that the federal and Sindh governments had not only failed to give security and protection to people but they also did not provide them justice.
He criticised the media for not highlighting the victimisation of the MQM. The media had been conducting talk shows and programmes on the killing of a PTI activist in Faisalabad but it completely ignored the alleged victimisation of the MQM, he added.
In his motion, a copy of which is available with Dawn, the MQM senator has accused law-enforcement agencies of “adopting a biased attitude” towards Urdu-speaking people.
“I wish to move an adjournment motion to discuss a matter of utmost national importance and grave concern regarding target killings, murder and custodial deaths of 400 workers of the MQM in Karachi and even office-bearers of the MQM in Lahore and Sialkot in the last two years,” says the motion.
Expressing concern over “the continuous and unabated killing of the children of founders of Pakistan”, the senator regrets that “not a single perpetrator of these heinous crimes has been apprehended or punished”.
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