MQM walks out from NA over targeted killings

Staging a walkout from the National Assembly (NA) against rising incidents of extortion and target killings in Karachi, the Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) coalition partner–the MQM–threatened on Thursday that it might boycott the forthcoming joint sitting of parliament if swift action was not taken by the government to improve the deteriorating law and order situation in Karachi.
Speaking on a point of order, MNA Haider Abbas Rizvi said that the MQM might not attend the upcoming joint session of parliament if prompt action was not taken to control extortion in Karachi. “We have already brought this issue in notice of the president, PM and CM,” he said. MQM parliamentarians kept on raising slogans such as ‘Bhatta Khori Bund Karo-Karachi Bachao’, before staging a walkout from the House. Rizvi said that it had become almost impossible to run a business in the biggest city of the country due to plethora of issues, including power outages, interrupted water supply and rising incidents of extortion in different areas. He said the MQM was a coalition partner of the government but it could not afford neglecting its areas. Rizvi said that the business community was shifting to other countries due to such circumstances, as they were facing different kinds of threats from extortionists.