By By Dilshad Azeem
“Our 39 workers have been murdered in Karachi violence and we believe that the target killings are specific to the ANP affiliated persons,” ANP Senior Vice President Haji Adeel told The News.
The ANP central office-bearer, describing the MQM’s claims as rubbish and far behind the realities, said that sometimes the ANP activists were targeted under the garb of IDPs and sometimes by implicating them in various cases.
“This is the same force that does not want the IDPs to enter Sindh ever since the military operation was launched in the Malakand Division,” Adeel, who is also an ANP senator, said when asked about the hands behind such target killings.
The ANP senior vice president, who has also moved a motion before the Senate on the Karachi situation, maintained that only Pakhtun people were being murdered and “everyone knows very well which one of the Sindh forces does not want to see them in Karachi”.
When asked about the Sindh government’s step to accommodate 15,000 IDPs, the senator said the ANP was grateful to Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah and the PPP leadership at the Centre for such an appreciable measure.
“We take Shah Sahib’s step as encouraging and a good omen for the country’s integrity, but we need to understand that there is also a force in Sindh that is unhappy with the CM’s decision.”
The ANP leader turned down the MQM’s claim that its workers were also among those who had lost their lives in the Karachi violence. “After the ANP, two activists of the Jamiat and one of the PML were also murdered in the target killings.”
“Certainly, the forces that are against the IDPs’ presence in Sindh must be contained and dealt with severely as these people are not refugees but citizens of Pakistan and trying to settle within their own country.”
In response to a question, the ANP senator said his party leadership would shortly take up with the PPP central command the issue of uncalled for statements of many of its second tier Sindhi leaders on the question of the IDPs.
“The Sindh PPP members, who opposed accommodating the IDPs, are totally negating the Constitution of Pakistan, violating the fundamental rights of citizenship and contradicting their own party policy,” Haji Adeel said.
Giving details of his motion submitted before the Senate Secretariat, he said he had called for a debate and a reply from the MQM, Sindh PPP leaders and Sindhi nationalists on their statements opposing the IDPs’ entry into the province.
The IDPs, he said, must be treated throughout the country as per their basic right to move anywhere in their homeland freely and without any fear. “They deserve to be given respect rather than treated like refugees.”
About the Malakand Division, the ANP leader said the Taliban were being controlled from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) where the al-Qaeda had a strong footing. He said the military would stay in the Malakand Division in order to check the militants.