KARACHI, Jan 26: The All Pakistan Shia Action Committee condemning the continuous disappearance of two doctors and an engineer has warned that their whereabouts must be disclosed otherwise a sit-in would be staged on the M.A. Jinnah Road during the main Ashura procession on 10th Muharram.

Addressing a press conference at Karachi Press Club on Friday, the Shia committee leaders said Dr Ali Raza, Engineer Mumtaz Hussain and Dr Imran Naqi had been missing for the last seven months, but despite approaching various government agencies their whereabouts were not being disclosed to relatives.

They alleged that some government agency had picked up all the three. They claimed that these government agencies had been changing their loyalties every now and then on the dictates of their foreign masters.

Maulana Mirza Yusuf Hussain, Saleem Haider, Agha Nayyer Abbas, S.M. Haider, Ali Naqvi and others who addressed the press conference alleged that these agencies on the directive of their foreign masters had been killing the highly educated members of Shia community and now their economic massacre was being carried out systematically.

They said a couple of days ago the government had accepted that one of these three missing persons, Dr Ali Raza, was being held by the home department, but his relatives and lawyers had not been allowed to meet him. Even his whereabouts were not disclosed nor was any reason provided for his arrest, they added. They said if these people were required in any investigations they could have been arrested formally and tried in open courts.

The mother, wife and daughters of one of the missing persons, Mumtaz Hussain, were also present at the press conference.

Earlier, a number of people including relatives of the missing men took out a procession and marched from Nishtar Park to Purani Numaish in protest against their disappearance. Holding banners in support of their demands, the protesters chanted slogans.