- Says MQM workers are being beaten into giving ‘favourable’ statements
- Says jailed workers also being lured with dropping criminal charges and improvement in living conditions
Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) Coordination Committee member Dr Farooq Sattar on Sunday accused the Rangers of torturing party workers imprisoned at the Karachi Central Jail.
He said he had received reports that a heavy contingent of Rangers on Friday evening “conducted an operation” at the Karachi prison – in barracks 18, 19, 24 and 25 – and took away 40 under-trial ‘MQM prisoners whose cases are pending hearing’.
“We heard they were tortured and intimidated,” he said, adding that jail administration cooperated with the Rangers.
Sattar alleged the jail’s superintendent and other officials were also present when the paramilitary personnel conducted the ‘raid’.
“Around 40 under-trial MQM workers were beaten up in jails and were forced to give ‘favourable’ statements. After that,they were locked in their cells all day. This happened day before yesterday,” Senior Deputy Convener Dr Farooq Sattar said while addressing a press conference at the party’s Khursheed Begum Secretariat in Azizabad.
The senior MQM leader alleged the prisoners were being mistreated and that their legal facilities under the jail manual had been withdrawn.
“Maybe they refused to change their loyalties and are being subjected to torture,” he speculated, adding that the situation was reminiscent of the “heavy-handed tactics employed in 1992”.
“We didn’t have evidence before, it was just a suspicion. But now we are sure this isn’t just a conspiracy… Their loyalties are being forcibly converted, [they are told] they will be given facilities in jail and maybe the charges against them will be relaxed and they will be released soon if they agree to certain conditions,” he said.
“The cat is out of the bag.”
“We strongly condemn these actions and appeal to Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, Sindh Home Minister Sohail Anwar Siyal and Army Chief General Raheel Sharif to investigate the incident and expose any wrongdoing,” he said.
The senior MQM leader, in a veiled reference to the newly-formed political party of former MQM leader and ex-Karachi mayor Mustafa Kamal, claimed his party’s activists and leaders were getting suspicious phone calls from unknown numbers, asking them to switch their allegiance with “groups from the other side of the bridge”.
“After trying to lure in our MNAs and MPAs, it appears that now the guns have turned towards the weaker sections.
“This dry cleaning process that is conducted once every few years should come to an end.”
“Such incidents are putting the reputation of the state’s institutions at stake,” he said.
It is the responsibility of the army chief, the federal interior minister and the provincial home minister to safeguard the reputation of the institutions, he added. “This is a re-run of the film ‘Pakeeza’,” he remarked. “The same film was screened in 1992 and 1998. Those who obey will be washed of their sins.”
The development comes a week after former Karachi mayor Mustafa Kamal, who returned home from self-imposed exile on March 3, launched a blistering attack on MQM Chief Altaf Hussain and challenged the ‘iron grip’ of the MQM on the city by forming a new party.
Kamal — who won wide support as mayor of Karachi from 2005 to 2010 for his efforts to ease traffic and improve public services — accused Altaf of working for India’s premier spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), destroying two generations of Mohajirs (Urdu-speaking people) and issuing threats under the influence of alcohol.
Later, while rejecting all allegations against Hussain, MQM’s Convenor Nadeem Nusrat advised the country’s establishment to let go of its politics of dividing the party and instead talk to the party chief.
The MQM leadership had came out with a calm response to Mustafa Kamal’s explosive news conference on March 3, claiming the party had been bearing the same accusations for decades.
Cornered and frustrated, he is throwing wild allegations against ALL and anyone. Those charges have already been denied by Sind Interior Minister and Jail Superintendent. The detained MQM criminals are running net-work outside, using mobile-phone and even collecting Bhatta inside the jail.
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