MQM-Pakistan begs PM, army chief for justice

Sattar demands ongoing army operation should be against terrorists,

not innocent workers of his party

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) has implored the army chief, the prime minister and all other high-ups of the country to do justice to its leaders and workers as enshrined in the constitution of Pakistan.

“Enough is enough,” said MQM-P Dr Farooq Sattar while addressing a press conference at the temporary headquarters of the party in Bahadurabad on Thursday. 

He requested the state institutions to give relief to his party workers who, he alleged, were initially abducted by law-enforcement agencies and later their mutilated bodies were found in bushes. He said the discovery of bodies had upset the entire community.

Sattar was speaking with special reference to the late-night discovery of the mutilated body of Furqan Iqbal, a former office-bearer of the party’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal sector and an employee at Port Qasim. 

Iqbal was first allegedly picked up by law-enforcement agencies on May 11 while he was returning home from work, and 14 days later his body was found in bushes in Murad Memon Goth, Gadap, at around midnight on Wednesday.

The MQM-P had adopted a peace policy and adhered to the integrity and sovereignty of Pakistan, but it was being pushed to the wall, protested Sattar.

Although workers and office-bearers were going missing and being killed, the MQM-P had adopted a silent strategy and not reacted, he maintained.

Over the last three years, the MQM had been victimised and bullied, he said as he raised his hands begging the relevant quarters for help with getting justice. 

“Being true Pakistanis we too should be equally treated,” he said and asked the authorities stop the “step-motherly treatment”.

During that period, Sattar said, other political parties were given open space to hold their public meetings, but on the contrary, MQM-P workers were arrested, which had slowed down the party’s political activities. As result, he said, the party was being forced to suspend all activities for the next general elections due next year.

“We have lost our patience. Our supporters and followers have kept a low profile. We are busy collecting bodies and in their burials,” he said, adding that lives of followers and workers of the party were at risk. He asked for protection of the workers and an end to harassment.

“We will be unable to continue our political activities if this attitude continues against us. We are afraid that we have to suspend our movement,” he said.

“In the 1971 war too, our people sacrificed their lives and the situation today is no different. We are the worst sufferers of the ongoing situation.”

He said his party was supporting the army operation against terrorists, but that operation should not be against “our innocent people”.