KARACHI, Jan 3: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement has said that the violence that erupted after the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto on Dec 27 was aimed at triggering ethnic riots in Sindh and undermining the growing industrial and commercial activities.Addressing a press conference here on Thursday at the party’s headquarter, Nine Zero, Deputy Convener of the MQM coordination committee Dr Farooq Sattar pointed out that immediately after the tragic incident in Rawalpindi, miscreants in Karachi and other parts of Sindh went on a looting spree, besides setting public and private properties on fire. Several hundred vehicles were torched and destroyed while government installations and MQM offices were attacked.

He said more than 50 innocent people lost their lives in the violence. Besides, he claimed, miscreants attacked houses and abused womenfolk. There was no one there to stop the terrorists, he regretted.

Dr Sattar observed that only private vehicles belonging to a particular community were torched and industrial units and factories were set ablaze in an organised manner. “This shows that the perpetrators of the violence had conspired to trigger ethnic riots in the province,” he added.

He said the government should take steps to assess citizens’ losses and compensate them suitably.

The MQM leader urged the president and the caretaker government to constitute an inquiry commission comprising judges of the Sindh High Court to investigate the causes of the violence so that stern action could be taken against the miscreants.

He said his party had set up a central complaint centre at the ‘Nine Zero’ and zonal complaint centres at its zonal offices in the interior of Sindh to help the victims claim compensation.

He expressed his astonishment over human rights organisation’s silence over the huge losses caused to citizens during the violence, and appealed to the HR and civil society organisations to send their teams to the affected localities and collect facts and figures regarding the losses.

He advised masses to maintain unity and their file and rank in order to foil all attempts of fomenting ethnic hatred.

Other members of the coordination committee were also present at the press conference.