KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) directed on Tuesday Sindh Rangers to arrest Muttahida Qaumi Movement – Pakistan (MQM) chief and second-in-command, after the police failed to detain them despite several orders.
The ATC-II judge wrote to Rangers Director-General Major General Muhammad Saeed to arrest MQM-Pakistan Convener Farooq Sattar and Senior Deputy Convener Amir Khan and present them in court by the next hearing. The court also issued non-bailable arrest warrants for them.
The ATC declared the matter most urgent and asked the Rangers top official to keep it on top priority. It also directed him to ensure compliance with its order. This is the first time that a court has tasked the paramilitary force with the arrest of suspects in a case.
Sattar and Khan, among other leaders and workers of the party, are wanted in several cases. Most of the cases pertain to alleged hateful and incendiary speeches of MQM-Pakistan’s disavowed supreme leader Altaf Hussain, which he delivered on different occasions.
The case in which the two leaders’ arrest was tasked to the paramilitary force is about a similar incident as divorced MQM founder had delivered a controversial speech on August 22 last year outside Karachi Press Club, where the party had staged a hunger strike for recovery of its missing activists.
One person was killed and several others were injured as charged MQM workers stormed a media house, scuffled with law enforcers and torched vehicles after they were allegedly incited by their party chief to do so.
The MQM claims that a large number of its party workers have forcibly been disappeared by the law enforcement agencies after they were picked up in targeted raids at their houses, offices and other places. Several petitions are also pending with the Sindh High Court over the matter.