Dining in MQM stronghold not so easy for PTI leaders

• MQM supporters uproot PTI camp office in NA-246 constituency, burn PTI flags as members of both parties pelt each other with eggs
• Police resort to baton charge to disperse protesting political activists, detain several MQM supporters

Scores of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) workers attacked the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) election camp office in Karimabad area of Karachi on Friday night, destroying the camp completely.

Workers of both the parties chanted slogans against each other as MQM workers set PTI flags on fire. A large police contingent reached the area and baton-charged workers of both parties in an attempt to disperse the crowd. A few protesters were detained as well.

While PTI candidate for NA-246 by-elections, Imran Ismail managed to escape the scene, MQM leader Haider Abbas Rizvi along with Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui reached the area to control the situation.

NIHARI TURNS SOUR FOR ISMAIL:

The otherwise simple Nihari dinner turned into a political battlefield for Imran Ismail when MQM activists surrounded the area and started shouting politically charged slogans.

Ismail, along with PTI lawmaker Arif Alvi and dozens of party activists, visited Javaid Nihari in Federal B Area as part of his election campaign for the upcoming by-poll in NA-246, Azizabad. But soon after Ismail’s arrival, MQM supporters started gathering outside the restaurant and chanted slogans in favour of their party and its leaders. PTI activists were quick to reply and soon the situation turned into a political gathering where supporters of both parties started sloganeering against each other and in favour of their leaders.

This was not all. The sloganeering was followed by hurling of eggs at each other.

PTI CAMP UPROOTED:

Later in the night, supporters from both parties engaged in verbal clashes in Karachi’s Karimabad area.

The situation almost got out of hands when a heated mob uprooted a PTI election camp located in the area. It was not until MQM leaders Haider Abbas Rizvi and Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui arrived at the scene that the situation came under control. According to reports, Rizvi and Maqbool asked the crowd to move away from the area. The PTI election camp was later reared on instructions from MQM leaders present at the scene.

The clash between workers of both parties is a clear violation of the mutually agreed upon code of conduct formulated by party leaders after the Jinnah ground incident.

It all started on Tuesday when a PTI delegation visiting Jinnah ground to review the arrangements for their election rally, planned for April 19, was attacked by MQM workers. The MQM alleged that the PTI delegation tore up banners of Altaf Hussain and desecrated the martyrs’ monument.

Both PTI and MQM had also lodged FIRs against each other following the Jinnah ground clash.

After this, the Sindh governor held a meeting with representatives of both parties on a ‘request’ from MQM chief Altaf Hussain, who then offered PTI the Jinnah ground venue for its April 19 rally but asked time to make arrangements to secure the martyrs’ monument there.

The meeting was attended by PTI’s Dr Arif Alvi and its candidate from NA 246, Imran Ismail, while the MQM was represented by Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui and party candidate Kanwar Naveed Jameel.

Accompanied by representatives from both parties, Dr Ibad spoke to reporters at Governor House after the meeting and said: “I have requested both parties to refrain from provocation and not to use derogatory words against each other’s leaders.”

Commenting on the latest provocation by the MQM workers, PTI leader Imran Ismail said that he would not be cowed down by the “hooliganism”.

“Many of PTI workers have been wounded by the MQM supporters’ attack,” he said. “MQM workers stormed our election camp. Wherever we go, MQM goons just follow us,” he said, adding that Jinnah Ground was not MQM’s property, it was owned by the state. Despite MQM’s tactics of intimidation, PTI would do the campaign and win the election, he added.