KARACHI, Aug 4 The Muttahida Qaumi Movement has accused the provincial administration of a bias against the party and said that despite repeated requests the administration has done nothing to rescue a number of Urdu-speaking families trapped in the troubled parts of Orangi Town and Qasba Colony where their properties have been set on fire by miscreants.

Speaking at a press briefing here on Wednesday, MQM leader Wasey Jalil said the Rangers also played “a negative role” as they picked up several workers of the MQM in different city areas and took them to undisclosed locations.

He said that soon after the assassination of MQM lawmaker Syed Raza Haider, who was gunned down in a Nazimabad mosque on Monday, “armed terrorists of the Awami National Party and members of the land, drug and arms mafia” started indiscriminate firing in Qasba Colony, Faqeer Colony, Banaras, Kati Pahari, etc, tortured people and set their properties on fire.

He said in Muslimabad and Pirabad Society, terrorists took positions and were continuously firing on the localities dominated by the Urdu-speaking population.

He said many people had been killed and dozens others wounded in the armed attacks.

The wounded were shifted to the Qatar Hospital and Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.

The MQM leader said that Fayyaz and Mahmood were tortured and shot dead in Bukhari Colony when they were returning home. “A resident of Orangi Town No 10, Mohammad Nadeem, was travelling in a minibus when terrorists stopped the vehicle in Abidabad, checked the identity cards of all commuters, forced Nadeem to disembark and shot him in the head.”

Similarly, he said, MQM worker Asad Hussain, who was wounded in Qasba Colony violence on Tuesday, died in the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital on Wednesday.

Another resident of the Hanifabad area, Farhan Yasin, suffered bullet wounds in the violence and also died in the ASH on Wednesday.

He said that many families living in some troubled parts of the Qasba area had been shifted to a government school in North Nazimabad.

“They were forced to migrate as ANP men warned them to leave their houses or face dire consequences,” he alleged.