KARACHI: Hundreds of loyal workers, including women and children of the London-based leadership of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), showed their muscle power on Friday and challenged every move from the police and Rangers both in Karachi and Hyderabad to mark Yaum-i-Shuhada and dispersed after hours of scuffle with law enforcers, who fired tear gas shells and baton charged the activists.

In Karachi workers started gathering near Liaquat Ali Khan Chowk, popularly known as Mukka Chowk, in the second half of the day that but were denied to march to Yadgar-i-Shahada near ‘Nine Zero’ by police and Rangers who had blocked the main road leading to the venue.

The situation turned worse when the workers insisted on moving forward despite blockade, attracting reaction from the police and Rangers. Tension further gripped the neighbourhood when women workers of the party tried to recite the Quran on the main connecting Mukka Chowk with the road leading to Yadgar-i-Shuhada.

“We have allowed the women to go to their desired place and to offer Fateha or recite the Quran only to ease the situation,” said sector commander of Sindh Rangers Brigadier Naseem. “It’s not appropriate to recite the Quran on the main road and one cannot allow bringing the Quran into politics. The traffic was badly jammed and even ambulances were stuck in this traffic jam.”

Before women moved to the Yadgar-i-Shahada the police resorted to baton charge and detained several workers of the party who tried to go with female activists. The huge crowd of MQM-London supporters dispersed only on a call from the London leadership, which in a brief message asked them to stay “peaceful and return to your homes”.

But before the message from London reached the workers, a large number of young activists managed to hoist party flag on the Mukka Chowk monument that pumped up the crowd, which then started chanting pro-Altaf Hussain slogans. The MQM-London alleged that the police and Rangers had arrested some five workers of the party but there was no word from any of the law enforcement agency about it.

In Hyderabad, the police resorted to teargas shelling, baton-charge and aerial firing to disperse MQM-London activists when they broke a police cordon to force their entry into Pucca Qilla on Friday evening to observe Yaum-i-Shuhada in response to a call given by their leader, Altaf Hussain.

A large number of MQM-L activists, many of them women, turned up at Pucca Qila apparently in a show of strength. They started gathering outside the venue after getting the party leadership’s message through social media. No organising committee member turned up to lead them. The party’s recently-appointed Hyderabad district organiser, Zafar Rajput, is in hiding.

Fearing a clash between MQM-L and MQM-Pakistan activists if both factions were allowed to assemble at the same venue, the police had barricaded the Qila.

While MQM-Pakistan activists were holding fateha khwani inside to observe the day, MQM-London activists who had affixed a big screen, displaying photographs of Nasir Hussain and Arif Hussain, the brother and nephew of Altaf Hussain, respectively, sat outside. Paces away from the slain workers’ graveyard within the Qila, MQM-P leaders and activists were busy reciting the Holy Quran. MNA Wasim Hussain, MPA Rashid Khilji, Hyderabad Mayor Syed Tayyab Hussain were among those present.

Published in Dawn December 10th, 2016