KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement will stage a peaceful demonstration in the city on Thursday (April 17) and similar protests across the country the next day against the ‘enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings’ of its workers, said an MQM leader on Tuesday.

Speaking at a press conference at the party headquarters, MQM leader Hyder Abbas Rizvi said that personnel of the law-enforcement agencies in plain clothes had been picking up MQM workers and subjecting them to brutal torture. In some cases, he added, they killed their workers and dumped their bodies on the outskirts of the city.

On April 13, Mr Rizvi added, officials in plain clothes picked up five MQM workers namely Ali Hyder, Sumair, Salman, Shoaib and Faizan in the Scheme 33 area.

But the Rangers and police denied their arrests when they were contacted to find out the whereabouts of the five workers, he said.

The MQM leader said that the whereabouts of 30 workers rounded up by officials in plain clothes had not been known since since January.

He said that petitions had been filed in the Sindh High Court for the recovery of every worker picked up by the officials in plain clothes.

He asked the government and the law-enforcement agencies to help the MQM in the recovery of the missing workers.

Mr Rizvi said that as to why police, the Rangers and intelligence agencies had failed to take action against those officials riding in vehicles without registration number plates.

He also criticised the Pakistan Protection Ordinance and said it was being used against the MQM in Karachi. “There is no justification of 90-day detention...under this black law 18 workers of the MQM have been remanded for 90 days.”

He said the MQM would stage a peaceful demonstration on Thursday in Karachi in protest over the killing of professionals, forced disappearance and extrajudicial killings of MQM workers and illegal activities of some elements in the law-enforcement agencies. He said the MQM would also hold countrywide protest demonstrations on April 18.

The MQM leader demanded that the prime minister, interior minister, Rangers director general, Inspector General of Police, Sindh, and the city police chief take action against those officials involved in such illegal and unconstitutional activities to provide justice to the victim workers’ families.