KARACHI: Rejecting the inquiry commission constituted by the Sindh government to probe the killing of its two workers, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement on Saturday demanded that the prime minister approach the Supreme Court to set up a judicial commission.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah on Friday set up the inquiry commission and tasked a retired judge of the Sindh High Court, Ghulam Sarwar Korai, with probing the killings of MQM workers Faraz Alam and Sohail Ahmed and submitting his report within 10 days.

Speaking to journalists at a programme held at the MQM headquarters Nine Zero to mourn the victims of the Shikarpur tragedy, MQM leaders Qamar Mansoor, Kanwar Naveed and Farooq Sattar criticised the provincial government for establishing an ‘administrative commission’ instead of a judicial commission.

Mr Mansoor said that the Sindh government would have had written a letter to the chief justice of the Sindh High Court requesting him to nominate a serving judge to head the judicial commission, if it had really been sincere about an impartial probe.

He requested the prime minister to write a letter to the Chief Justice of Pakistan so that he could form a judicial commission to inquire into the ‘extrajudicial killings’ and ‘enforced disappearances’ of MQM workers.

He recalled that in several previous cases provincial government had influenced the inquiries and it appeared that it also wanted to put pressure on the retired judge tasked with conducting an inquiry into the MQM workers’ killing.

Dr Sattar said on the occasion that 20 workers of the MQM were still missing while 36 fell victim to the ‘extrajudicial killing’ in Karachi, but not a single culprit was arrested.

He said that Karachi was under ‘partial martial law’ as Rangers were present here for so long. However, the situation became worse after the chief minister was made captain of the targeted operation, he added.

Published in Dawn February 1st, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play