- Protesters demand release of 136 missing persons from Shia community
Local police have refused to arrest Shia cleric Allama Ahmed Iqbal, after he offered himself up for the arrest to the authorities as the Majlis Wahdat ul Muslimeen’s (MWM’s) ongoing “fill the jails movement” entered its second phase in Karachi on Friday.
The police’s refusal prompted a spontaneous sit in by the protestors that said they would continue to do so until and unless all their demands were fulfilled. The protests have been claiming that at least 136 known cases of Shia persons being missing from Pakistan, of which 18 are from Karachi alone.
The decision to hold the protest had been taken earlier when a number of the people protested on the day of Ashura for the recovery of 30 mourners who they alleged had been picked up by the security agencies upon their return from pilgrimage from Karbala last year.
Allama Ahmed Iqbal, who is deputy general secretary of the MWM, offered himself up for the arrest as part of the movement being used to protest the disappearance of a large number of Shia persons. MWM’s General Secretary Allama Zafar Hassan Naqvi was arrested last week on Friday, when the first phase of the movement started.
Allama Iqbal along with Allama Mirza Yousuf Hussain and Maulana Dr Aqeel Moosa were leading figures that asked the authorities to arrest them in the second phase on Friday. A large crowd of the people led by the cleric came together at the Jamia Masjid Al Mustafa in Abbas Town in Karachi after the Friday prayers.
Before the protesters tried to hand themselves over to the police, the protesters chanted slogans of their demands as Allama Iqbal addressed the crowd. He made it clear that the Shia Muslims were demanding only what the constitution promises them, and that it was their fundamental right to know where these missing persons were and why they were not being given a fair trial.
Despite the charged protest, the police refused to take the Shia cleric into custody. It was only later when a number of other protesters were put into a police mobile, that the cleric insisted on accompanying them to the local police station and was carried away, seemingly under arrest.
On the other hand, the MWM also continued their activities in Lahore where they had held a press conference along with the parents of the missing persons.
Missing Persons of Millat-e-Jafaria Punjab spokesman Sajid Hussain and the father of Raghib Abbas and others said that the families of the missing Shias were being deprived of their basic human and constitutional rights.