MQM asks UN to intervene over workers’ harassment

Karachi: In a letter written to the United Nations (UN) on Thursday, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) coordination committee called for the inter-governmental organisation to intervene over ‘continuous harassment of its workers’ supposedly by workers of Mohajir Qaumi Movement – Haqiqi (MQM-H).

Addressed to the UN’s secretary general, the MQM asked him to intervene and put an end to human rights violations against the Mohajir community in general and MQM workers and supporters in particular.

The letter includes details of ‘injustices’ and persecution the Mohajir community continued to brave for the past several decades, besides also highlighting how MQM, the community’s representative party was systematically subjected to hostility and kept from playing its democratic role in the country's development’.

The party called for the UN to ensure fundamental human rights were protected in countries who were members of the agency since it was its duty.

The reminder to UN, of its responsibility, came following a late night attack on the MQM’s office situated in Landhi, Union Council No,6 allegedly by men who belonged to their rival party, the MQM-H.

The office was reportedly set ablaze while men, women and elderly residents of the area were tortured and injured by the attackers.

According to MQM’s coordination committee officials, Haqiqi members were carrying out armed attacks at the party’s supporters in various areas, Landhi and Malir in particular, under ‘blatant official patronage’.

Condemning the attack, the party’s committee claimed that around 12 motorcycles pulled up outside the office, destroyed the furniture and set it ablaze.

The party officials alleged that when its workers reached the Landhi police station to get an FIR registered, Haqiqi men arrived at the station and resorted to indiscriminate firing which resulted in injuries to one MQM worker, Rahil Shuja.

The MQM maintained that Haqiqi men had been terrorising its supporters in Landhi and Malir for the past several days but despite exhausting all means to approach the authorities concerned, nobody bothered to take any action.

Administrative units

What has come to be identified as one of the oldest demands of the MQM, the party yet again called for making Karachi a separate administrative unit since it believed that Urdu speaking people of Sindh were being subjected to discrimination. The party also demand to make 20 administrative units all over Pakistan.

The demands were put forward by MQM’s senior deputy convener Dr Farooq Sattar at a press conference held outside Quaid-e-Azam’s mausoleum, at the end of the MQM’s protest the party’s missing persons and ‘martyrs’. The party had earlier staged a sit-in at Numaish Chowrangi.

A vigil in memory of its slain activists including Dr Sattar’s coordinator Aftab Ahmed who died last week in the custody of the paramilitary force was held at the end of the protests, while prayers for safe recovery of its missing activists were also held.

Dr Sattar later addressing a press conference outside the mausoleum requested the authorities concerned to have their activists recovered at the earliest. He informed the participants of having spoken to the DG Rangers with respect to attacks by Haqqiqi ‘terrorists’; however, the Rangers officer stated that the matter could only be handled by police stations and not the paramilitary force.