KARACHI – The People’s Amn Committee is a welfare organization, similar to Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) Khidmat-e-Khalq Foundation, Jamaat-e-Islami’s (JI) Al-Khidmat, or even the Edhi Foundation, argued Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza on Thursday during a media interaction after the Sindh Assembly session.
“The Amn Committee is becoming popular among the masses, which means that they are doing something good,” Mirza said, adding that the MQM’s allegations against the entire leadership of the Amn Committee were baseless.
He said that no party had all guiltless workers, and everyone – including the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the MQM – had been expelling criminals from their ranks. Mirza argued that he would not tender any apology to the MQM, as delivering a speech was his political right. He added that would only apologise to his party and the people, in case he has done something wrong.
“The MQM leaders themselves have been saying that their party had expelled thousands from the party under criminal charges; crime is part of society,” Mirza said, adding in the same breath that Muttahida had been inducting “unwanted people” but the PPP had never objected to it. The home minister presented a copy of what he described as a report compiled by the Home Department and Karachi Police about crime in the city. According to him, the crime rate in Lyari was twice as less as that reported in other parts of the city.
He said that the people of Malir and Lyari are hardcore supporters of the PPP, and voters from these areas were operating the Amn Committee. Mirza reiterated that MQM leaders misunderstood his speech, arguing that the PPP leadership was in constant contact with the MQM leaders and they should end their boycott of the Sindh Assembly’s proceedings.
Meanwhile, MQM members did not participate in Sindh Assembly proceedings for yet another day. But PPP members warmly welcomed Mirza on his arrival in the house, thumping desks and raising the slogans of Jeay Bhutto, Zinda Hai BB Zinda Hai, and Qadam Barhao Mirza Hum Tumhare Saath Haen. Deputy Speaker Shahela Raza, however, stopped PPP members from sloganeering, and expressed her concern over media reports that MPAs who raise slogans in favour of the home minister later get their applications signed by him.
