KARACHI, Dec 20: Women activists of Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM-H) on Friday called off their token hunger strike outside Karachi Press Club on the request of provincial leaders of the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy and assurance of the ARD’s support to their protest.

Saleem Zia, Zain Ansari, Basharat Mirza, Rashid Rabbani and other ARD leaders met the activists at the press club, where they had been staging token hunger strike for the last 12 days.

The ARD leaders said the MQM-H, after joining the ARD, had become their allied party and the alliance would initiate a protest campaign against the operation, raids and arrests being faced by its activists.

The MQM-H activists, including wives of its chief, Afaq Ahmed, Amir Khan, Younus Khan, Iqbal Qureshi and others, informed the ARD leaders that 1,200 activists of their party had been arrested. They alleged that an illegal operation had been launched against the party. “The government is using state machinery against the Mohajir Qaumi Movement leadership and activists, to appease the Muttahida Qaumi Movement,” they alleged.—PPI