KARACHI: The wife of death-row prisoner Saulat Mirza, whose hanging had been put off after his revelations and an offer to make more disclosures about the people in power particularly those associated with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, on Wednesday told the media about having receiving threats.

“Between 9am and 1pm on Wednesday, my elder brother-in-law received three phone calls all with the same message for me but from different places,” Ms Mirza told Dawn.

Take a look: Saulat Mirza was in touch with MQM chief before arrest, claims wife

“There was one phone call from South Africa, one from Canada and another from a private number,” she said adding that each time it was a different man on the line telling her brother-in-law to tell her to keep her mouth shut or face the consequences. “My brother-in-law thought the voices familiar. He said they were of party workers,” she added.

“I called the inspector in-charge of providing security to us thereafter,” Ms Mirza said.

Replying to a question about their security, she said it had been beefed up and there were police personal guarding their place since the night the video of her husband spilling the beans was aired on TV channels just a few hours before his scheduled hanging on March 19.

“It’s the same security. I don’t see any change there,” she added.

Answering a question whether or not she or her husband would back off now after these recent ‘threats’, Ms Mirza said: “Had we been afraid, we would not have taken this step of revealing the truth about these people in the first place. So let Saulat say what he knows. If these people are innocent as they say and if he is lying as they say, they can go to court or whatever to prove their innocence while he does his bit of unveiling their true faces.”

Meanwhile, in a press release a spokesperson for the MQM said that they were aware of comments made by the wife of Saulat Mirza to the effect that she had received threatening phone calls.

“The MQM has nothing whatsoever to do with these phone calls which Ms Mirza should report to the proper authorities,” the statement read.

Meanwhile, city police chief Ghulam Qadir Thebo, when contacted, said the law enforcement agency had already received ‘threat alerts’ and arrangements were made to enhance security of Saulat Mirza’s family.

“The security has already been beefed up,” he told Dawn.

“We are not fully aware of threatening phone calls, but the controversy already developed after that [Saulat Mirza’s video message and his wife’s TV interview] episode so we received threat alerts. We are providing them best possible security.”

However, he replied in the negative when asked whether or not the security allowed Saulat Mirza’s wife and his family to be escorted by the police mobile while travelling.

“No. We have only provided them security to their home. We have deployed police mobiles and recently enhanced the number of armed policemen posted there,” added the additional IG.

Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2015

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