KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement staged a big rally on Sunday in protest over the remarks of senior PPP leader Syed Khurshid Shah against the word ‘Mohajir’ and announced that it would launch a movement for 20 new provinces in the country after Muharram.

The rally was the culminating point of the MQM’s ‘black day’ which was observed in the metropolis on Sunday against Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Khurshid Shah’s remarks that he considered the word ‘Mohajir’ a swear word.

Despite the fact that the city was shut throughout the day, a large number of MQM workers and sympathisers, women and children included, reached the Shahrah-i-Quaideen-Sharea Faisal intersection, the venue of the rally, to condemn what they described as the blasphemous act of Mr Shah.

Wearing black armbands and carrying tri-colour party flags and portraits of their leader Altaf Hussain, the MQM workers used the event to raise the demand for a separate province for Mohajirs as well as the creation of new administrative units in the country.

Not only the workers, but every MQM leader who spoke to the protesters on the occasion pointed out discrimination and injustices allegedly meted out to the people of the urban areas of Sindh and condemned the ‘feudal and landlords who are occupying resources of Karachi’.

The charged crowd shouted slogans when senior MQM leader Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui announced that the party would launch a country-wide drive from Karachi after Muharram for the creation of 20 new provinces in the country.

While the MQM is being criticised for invoking the much-controversial blasphemy law against Mr Shah for his remarks against the word ‘Mohajir’, Dr Siddiqui said: “We are being told that from a liberal and progressive party we are becoming an extremist organisation... But we want to tell everyone that they would see us protesting whenever it comes to Namoos-i-Risalat.”

He said there was a big difference between a refugee and a ‘Mohajir’, as Mohajir were those who had chosen to migrate from India for a new country created in the name of Islam. “We are the one who made Pakistan but [in return] we never make any demand.”

Dr Siddiqui said that before partition 80 per cent of Sindh land was owned by Hindus. The people who came here from India were the rightful owner of the evacuee land, now owned by the feudal, he added.

He said that the “hundreds of thousands of people” came there on a notice of less than 18 hours to condemn Mr Shah’s insulting remarks.

He announced culmination of the rally and asked traders, shopkeepers, transporters and others to resume their normal activities.

Earlier, speaking on the occasion, senior MQM leader Dr Farooq Sattar said that the feudal and landlords were exploiting the resources of Karachi for their personal gains and they were conspiring against the MQM to ensure their forcible occupation.

He said the people of Sindh had observed the black day against Mr Shah’s remarks and they proved that they were rising against the control of the feudal on the resources of Sindh MQM leaders Haider Abbas Rizvi, Rauf Siddiqui, Heer Soho, religious scholars Senator Maulana Tanveer-ul-Haq Thanvi, Allama Dr Jameel Rathor, Allama Ali Karar Naqvi and others also spoke.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2014