KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) repeated on Friday its stance against the recent Rangers raid on the party’s headquarters and its demand for a judicial commission headed by a Sindh High Court judge to investigate the killing of a worker during the siege.

The party’s leaders insisted that the arms found by the Rangers were licensed and said a clarification issued by the United States that it never transported arms through the Karachi port negated the paramilitary force’s claim that they belonged to Nato forces operating in Afghanistan.

“Nine Zero has never been a no-go area,” MQM leader Haider Abbas Rizvi said at a press conference. “The security around this place is in line with reports and suggestions of law-enforcement and intelligence agencies that it is under a terrorist threat. However, this security arrangement never deprived anyone of easy movement.”

He condemned the way MQM workers were presented in court for judicial process by the law-enforcement personnel, saying the attitude had humiliated the political activists.

Know more: Karachi in daze after Rangers’ raid on MQM redoubt

“With their eyes covered and hands cuffed, it appears that the 1992 episode is being repeated. We have never even seen the Taliban militants being brought to courts in this manner. This is unfortunate and shameful,” he said, referring to a past military operation against his party.

He said the security agencies had tried to create the same impression which they had done in 1992 but had been denied by their own high-ups after 17 years when the then Intelligence Bureau chief and Karachi corps commander came up with the facts that showed that all allegations levelled against the MQM at that time were not true.

“This time again, we came to know about some surprising information. During the raid, even a gardener and cook working at Nine Zero were picked up and declared target killers. Torture and misbehaviour even with the 70-year-old widow sister of Altaf Hussain is also part of our record,” Mr Rizvi added.

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2015

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