NAWABSHAH, Jan 22: Activists of the Tahrik-i-Jafria and Shia Ulema Council staged a demonstration outside the press club on Monday to protest against ‘enforced disappearance’ of some members of their sect. Relatives of missing persons also participated in the demonstration.

Led by Syed Afzal Shah, district president of the Tehrik, and Syed Subhan Shah, district president the council, the protesters were carrying placards and raised slogans against the government.

Later, Mr Afzal, Hassan Rizvi, brother of a missing doctor, and others told a press conference that hundreds of persons, including members of their sect, were ‘missing’ after being picked up and taken to undisclosed locations, but the government had refused to take any responsibility for the phenomenon.

They said that they had moved a petition in the Sindh High Court and the Supreme Court to seek help for recovery of the missing persons but all the law-enforcement agencies had denied that they had been detained by them.Giving examples, they said that engineer Mumtaz Hussain Rizvi, Dr Ali Raza Zaidi and Imran Naqvi had been working in Dubai from where they were deported between June and July 2006 and then arrested at Karachi airport. Since then, they added, their whereabouts could not be ascertained. They demanded recovery of the missing persons.

LOADSHEDDING: Residents of Nawab Wali Mohammad Goth of the Qazi Ahmed area blocked the National Highway on Monday to protest against continued unannounced power loadshedding, on Monday.