PPP lawmaker blames MQM for attack: Tension in Mirpurkhas
By Our Correspondent
MIRPURKHAS, Jan 27: Pakistan People's Party MNA Syed Qurban Ali Shah has alleged that MQM activists were involved in an incident offiring onhis house on Wednesday and the DPO of Mirpurkhas had got names of the culprits.
He told newsmen here on Thursday that MQM minister Rauf Siddiqi had talked to him on telephone about the incident and he had informed the minister about it and asked him to get the names of assailants from the DPO.
He reminded the minister that MQM chief Altaf Hussain had vowed that no Muttahida Qaumi Movement activist would attack any Sindhi-speaking people but MQM activists had broken this pledge of their leader.
Mr Shah said that now it was responsibility of Altaf Hussain to remove those party men who were involved in the armed attack on him and take appropriate action against them.
He demanded of the IGP of Sindh to take legal action against the culprits. One person was injured in the firing on the MNA's house by six gunmen. The incident caused panic in the Satellite Town in the area on Thursday.
Police raided different places in the city to arrest the accused nominated in cases registered after the death of Abu Bakar Panhwar in police custody. Injured Mohammad Ayub Leghari was taken to the civil hospital.
On the complaint of Hussain Bux Lakho, manager of the MNA, police registered a case under sections 324, 147, 148 and 149 PPC against the unidentified gunmen.Talking to journalists, the MNA said this was an attack on him and his son as they were present in the house at the time of the firing.
Pakistan Muslim League-N leader Abdul Majeed alleged that SHO Khuda Bux Panhwar and other policemen forcibly entered his Lal Para house in his absence, misbehaved with his family members, including women, and used abusive language.
He condemned the police action and demanded that the Provincial Police Officer and the Regional Police Officer should take a notice of the matter and suspend the SHO.
Police and Rangers jointly patrolled the area and police had also been deployed at different places to avert any untoward incident. Meanwhile, the judicial magistrate of Mirpurkhas remanded four arrested policemen in police custody. The arrested policemen have been kept at the Digri police station.
The Town investigation police produced Sindh People's Students Federation activists Junaid Buland, Yousuf Qureshi and Farooq Chishti before the court of the judicial magistrate and obtained their seven-day remand in custody.
Sindh Culture and Tourism Minister Shabbir Ahmad Qaimkhani, accompanied by DCO Mohammad Siddiq Memon and DPO Altaf Hussain Bhatti, inquired about the health of Muttahida Qaumi Movement activists Mohammad Azhar and Mohammad Aslam, who had been injured on Tuesday night in Hameedpura Colony.
Muttahida zonal in-charge Abdul Saleem Razzaq said negligence of police had led to lawlessness in the city. He held PPP and SPSF activists responsible for the situation.
MNA: PPP MNA Nawab Mohammad Yousuf Talpur has condemned what he called government-sponsored terrorism in the city in the wake of protests against custodial death of a man. In a statement issued here on Thursday, he alleged that the government wanted to create crisis but democratic forces would not allow it to harm the country.
He observed that the Mirpurkhas incident indicated that a particular coalition party in the government wanted to create ethnic riots in Sindh. Activists of that party were being allowed to attack PPP workers and even the house of an MNA, he alleged.
He regretted that instead of registering an FIR against the culprits, police registered a false case against PPP MPA Shamim Aara Panhwar and other party leaders.
