KARACHI, April 24: An MMA leader and city chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami Dr Mairajul Huda Siddiqui has declared that any attempt to hand over Karachi to terrorists would be resisted tooth and nail. He was addressing a crowd of his supporters converged at the JI office, Idara Noor-i-Haq, on hearing about his release after brief detention on Saturday night.

“The MMA leadership has resolved to wipe out terrorism from the metropolis through the ongoing peaceful movement,” he said, making it clear that arrests and detentions could not deter them from going ahead.

Narrating details of his arrest, Dr Siddiqui said that he, along with Senator Prof Mohammad Ibrahim and some other leaders, was on his way to a mosque adjacent to the Islamia College for Asr prayers on Saturday when whisked away by police in civvies in a kidnapping style. He said that he had been taken to an unknown police station. “On the way, I was told that I am under arrest,” he said, adding that they dropped him at his residence late in the night.

The JI leader said he repeatedly asked police for the grounds of his arrest but they had no answer.

“The Karachi police have resorted to acting like Muttahida activists,” he remarked, and declared that despite facing such atrocities, the MMA would go ahead with its drive against poverty, price-hike, unemployment, obscenity, joint marathons, Aga Khan board, and military rule in the country.

Dr Siddiqui repeated the allegation that SHO of Nazimabad police station was involved in the kidnapping and murder of an IJT worker, Farhan Asif, as the victim and one of his friends had been kidnapped in presence of dozens of policemen and students. He deplored that police were not registering the FIR of Farhan’s murder.

LEGISLATORS: The MMA has rejected ‘bargaining’ on the Kashmir issue, saying that the nation would not accept any decision taken over and above the aspirations and feelings of Kashmiri people.