KARACHI, Feb 12: A group of people reportedly belonging to the Muttahida Labour Division on Thursday manhandled members of the city council's committee for human resource management in the city government's HRM department.
Speaking at a news conference at the city government's secretariat, the council's senior presiding officer, Muslim Pervaiz, said some members of the monitoring committee visited the HRM office and sought the record of appointments, transfers and postings made since Aug 14, 2001, in the city government from district officer Tauseef Zafar.
When members of the committee, including Abdul Razzak, Nisar Pervez, Mujahid Barkati and the city council's chairman for land revenue and establishment, Gauharul Islam, were asking the official to hand over the record, 20 to 25 members of the Muttahida Labour Division, including two armed men, entered the office. They locked the doors of the office and manhandled the team, besides threatening them.
Sensing the danger, a member of the committee rang up the Nazim's office and informed some union council Nazims present there that he and his colleagues had been made hostage, he said.
When some UC Nazims, including Engineer Abdul Aziz, Abid Ilyas and Imran Baghpati, accompanied by some Rangers personnel, reached the HRM department, some Muttahida Labour Division men reportedly had heated arguments with the Rangers men.
Later, a spokesman for the city Nazim said that an FIR about the incident had been lodged with the New Town police station. Some UC Nazims approached the DCO and asked him about the preventive measures he had taken although the city Nazim's secretariat had been ransacked by activists of Muttahida labour wing in December.
Following the incident, it had been decided in a meeting between the city Nazim and the DCO that offices belonging to labour wings of political organizations on the premises of the civic centre would be closed down with immediate effect. However, the DCO failed to implement the decision, the spokesman said.
