ISLAMABAD, June 7: The Parliamentary leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in the National Assembly, Dr Farooq Sattar, has said that Monday's resignation by the Sindh chief minister is not linked to the recent incidents of terrorism in Karachi.

Talking to reporters at the Parliament House, he said that coalition partners in Sindh had been discussing the proposal for changing the chief minister for several months.

Dr Sattar said the move to change Ali Mohammad Mahar had been initiated by the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) itself and the MQM had no role in it. He said there was no justification for demanding dismissal of a government because of two or three terrorist incidents.

"Why did nobody ask for the resignation of the Balochistan governor or chief minister when some 44 people were killed on Ashura day?" he asked. When asked why was the governor not taking responsibility for the recent incidents of terrorism, Dr Sattar claimed that the Sindh government had been successful in maintaining law and order in Karachi if the incidents in the month of May were ignored.

"Look at the period from January 2003 to April 2004, there was no incident of sectarian killing in Karachi," he said. Secondly, he said with the efforts of the government there had been a marked reduction in extortion by police.

He also said that there had been no targeted killings of doctors or other professionals in Karachi. "There has been no student violence in Karachi for several months," Dr Sattar said.

He said the Sindh governor had played a direct role in checking the incidents of students violence by inviting leaders of Jamaat-i-Islami and the MQM and asking them to sign a code of conduct under which the student wings of the two parties agreed not to indulge in any violence.

The MQM leader called for investigating the recent terror incidents in Karachi on the same lines as were adopted in the probe into attacks on the life of President Pervez Musharraf.

He said there were some 'hidden hands' behind the Karachi incidents. Dr Sattar also said that the role of Jamaat-i-Islami was very suspicious in the whole affair because the benefit of all such incidents went only to that party. The MQM leader said the JI wanted to disrupt peace before the next local government elections in 2005.