KARACHI: Demanding local policing for the metropolis, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan on Monday condemned what it called posting of 191 police officers in Karachi from the interior of Sindh and saw it as an attempt to deprive youths of Karachi of their share of government jobs.

A senior party leader vowed that the MQM-P would not allow the Pakistan Peoples Party, which has been ruling Sindh for the past 12 years, to succeed in its “nefarious designs” at any level.

In a statement issued here, senior MQM-P leader Kanwar Naveed Jameel said that policemen belonging to the interior of Sindh who were recruited against the Sindh-rural quota were completely unaware of the ground realities of Karachi and had no idea about its neighbourhoods.

He said being the economic hub of the country Karachi needed an effective system of community policing.

Demanding local police for Karachi, Mr Jameel, who is the parliamentary party leader of the MQM-P in the Sindh Assembly, claimed that “unrest and resentment” prevailed within the people of Karachi because of appointment of non-resident policemen and officials from the interior of Sindh in the Karachi police.

“The frequent appointment of policemen from interior Sindh to Karachi [is] tantamount to [economic] exploitation of the youths of Karachi who already have been deprived of government jobs in the name of so-called merit,” he said.

He said the provincial government had destroyed all public institutions of Karachi by making such appointments and now it seemed that they wanted to ruin the department of police as well.

Earlier in March, the MQM-P also complained about transfer of 73 police inspectors of Larkana division to the Karachi police and said that the PPP wanted to show urban vacancy filled by such transfers and then it would hire more people on the Sindh-rural quota by showing the posts of transferred officials as vacant.

Meanwhile, MQM-P MNA Kishwar Zehra demanded that international flight operations from Karachi be restored forthwith.

She telephoned Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan and informed him of the plight of stranded Pakistanis who wanted to return to Karachi.

An MQM-P statement said that the aviation minister assured her that the flight operation from Karachi would begin soon.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2020