‘Nobody can ensure peace if jailed MQM leaders denied justice’

Karachi: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement has threatened to take to the streets if its two incarcerated leaders, mayor-elect Waseem Akhtar and former provincial minister Rauf Siddiqui, are not provided with justice.

Addressing a protest rally outside the Karachi Press Club on Friday, Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqi, senior deputy convener of the party’s coordination committee, warned that if justice was not give to the MQM, no one could ensure peace in the city.

“Justice has been murdered in this city several times,” he said.

The rally had been announced a day earlier over Akhtar and Siddiqui’s arrests on the basis of what the party called “a fake report’ of a joint investigation team probing charges the two provided shelter and medical treatment to criminals.

Siddiqi said the two “cannot be kept behind bars for long, and if we are not provided justice, the MQM will be compelled to take to the streets”.

The senior deputy convener said Akhtar had been nominated as Karachi’s mayor of Karachi by the party chief, and despite torture on him, that decision “can never be changed”.

He mentioned that his party had approached higher courts and would continue to knock on their doors for justice.

“Today, we are gathered at the door of the media, KPC, and when people do not get justice, they go to the court of the media and people.”

He claimed that JIT reports had no value in a single case, as “a JIT is made and the next day it is changed”.

He asked Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah why the paramilitary Rangers were given powers only in Karachi and not in other parts of Sindh. He then answered his own query by saying that it was “just because you [CM] do not represent urban voters”.

The MQM leader again referred to the chief minister and said: “You claim that Sindh cannot be divided, but your actions and deeds have already proved that Sindh has been divided.”

He said Akhtar had been in jail in the past but he had never left Altaf Hussain or his party.

He said fake cases were being registered over an old enmity with the MQM, but the party’s voters would never surrender.