HYDERABAD, Aug 3: The MMA and the ARD have made frontal attacks against the Sindh governor, chief minister and the MQM and alleged that the Hyderabad city is being held hostage by the MQM activists who are harassing opposition candidates and their proposers and seconders.

Speaking at a press conference at the press club here on Wednesday, district Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal president Abdul Waheed Qureshi said the chief minister had set up a permanent camp in Hyderabad.

He alleged that both the governor and the chief minister were personally patronizing and supporting the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. He claimed that the MQM was issuing threats to opposition candidates for the local body elections to withdraw from the contest or they would be killed. He said even women candidates were not being spared. He regretted that judges entrusted with election work were also being harassed and subjected to mental pressure.

Mr Qureshi said complaints had been made to the Chief Election Commissioner but to no avail. He added that any inquiry about the election malpractice would prove useless because no inquiry officer was in a position to report against the MQM.

He maintained that the basic unit to maintain law and order was the SHO but all SHOs in the city were supporting the MQM. He claimed that the elections were being held in Karachi one week earlier to enable the ‘muscle men’ of the MQM to create terror in the Hyderabad elections.

He said government buildings and schools had been taken over by the MQM activists for their election work. He provided a list of 33 buildings and schools in which, according to him, the MQM had set up election offices.

He said if the government wanted to make selections then there was no need to stage the drama of elections. JUP MPA Abdul Rehman Rajput was of the opinion that the election malpractice was being committed because no permanent Chief Election Commissioner had been appointed.

Pakistan Muslim League-N leader Afzal Gujjar said the election code of conduct was being openly violated. The other MMA and ARD leaders who were present at the press conference included Ghulam Rasool Memon of the People’s Party Parliamentarians, Shaikh Shaukat Ali of the Jamaat-i-Islami, Hafiz Azam Jehangiri of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (F) and Hanif Siddiqui of the PML-N.