Sattar asks govt to explain how Khalid Shamim’s video was leaked

KARACHI: Dr Farooq Sattar, senior deputy convener of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), has asked the government to explain how a video of an MQM worker in custody, Khalid Shamim, involved in the high-profile murder case of Dr Imran Farooq, was recorded and leaked to the media.

Khalid Shamim, an MQM worker in detention, in a video confession aired by Geo channel on Wednesday, has alleged that the MQM chief was involved in Imran Farooq murder case. The video had raised many questions, said the senior deputy convener at a press conference at the Khursheed Begum Memorial Hall here on Thursday.  He also asked Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar to explain who had recorded this statement and who provided it to the media. 

Sattar said such matters created doubts over the jail administration. Khalid had said, “When Imran Farooq’s body was brought back to Pakistan, he (the MQM chief) called Kamal and said, ‘The job has been done well’.”  He also revealed that the MQM chief had been uncomfortable with the popularity the then Karachi mayor, Mustafa Kamal, had enjoyed among the workers.

Sattar alleged at the press conference that for the last two to three decades, “a state operation is being run against the MQM, and a plan has been drawn to crush the MQM in the garb of the operation of 2013”. 

Farooq Sattar said it was also the responsibility of the media houses to ask the government if this video was leaked with its approval and who was involved in running this video of a suspect who was already in custody. 

He said it was also the constitutional, legal and professional duty of the media to answer all these questions. He said that the judiciary should also take suo moto notice of the matter. 

A recorded statement of a person who was in custody and who had not been produced in the court was aired, and it was a challenge to the writ of the judiciary as well as a question mark over the rule of law, the MQM leader said.  He appealed to the prime minister and the interior minister to order an investigation into the matter. Farooq Sattar also appealed to the Chief of Army Staff to take action over the matter.