KARACHI: The Rangers formally detained two Muttahida Qaumi Movement ‘missing’ workers for three months after keeping them in their illegal detention for around eight months, said a senior MQM leader on Friday.

Speaking at a press conference at the Khurshid Begum Secretariat in Azizabad, senior MQM leader Dr Farooq Sattar said the two workers, Mirza Zeeshan Beg and Syed Tanveer Ahmed, were the victim of enforced disappearance after they were picked up by the Rangers in January.

He said the Rangers had denied in the Sindh High Court that they had arrested the two workers during the hearing of a petition against their illegal detention. “Today, the Rangers got their remand for 90 more days after keeping them in their illegal detention for 240 days. Will the high court take suo motu notice on this?” he asked.

Dr Sattar said that illegal raids were being conducted for arresting ‘innocent’ MQM workers in the name of the Karachi operation. If the arrests were being made on the basis of intelligence and evidence, then why the authorities had released thousands of workers after having them detained for a considerable period, he argued.

He shared details of the recent arrests of the MQM workers by the Rangers and said the held workers had not been formally shown arrested yet.

The MQM leader said if the held workers were not produced in a court of law within 24 hours of their arrest, their names would be included in the list of the victims of enforced disappearance.

He said there was an unannounced ban on political and welfare activities of the MQM. “At some point, this has to be stopped. There is no militant wing in the MQM and all of our held workers are innocent.”

He said the local government elections were approaching and any attempt to snatch the MQM’s mandate would not be accepted.

‘MQM opts out of dialogue under protest’

Dr Sattar, the MQM’s parliamentary party leader in the National Assembly, said his party had held three rounds of dialogue with the federal government on the assurances of Maulana Fazlur Rehman after its lawmakers submitted their resignations.

He said there were two parts of the MQM demands — related to the prime minister’s administrative authority and the grievance redressal committee. He said the party had to quit the dialogue process after the prime minister did not bother even after the passage of three weeks to use his “administrative, legal and constitutional authority” to lift the unannounced ban on MQM activities and live telecast of MQM chief Altaf Hussain’s speeches.

Accompanied by other party leaders, Dr Sattar appealed to human rights organisations to take notice of the illegal raids and arrests. He also demanded that the authorities respect the MQM mandate.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2015

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