KARACHI, Jan 23: The City Council unanimously adopted a resolution demanding a judicial inquiry into the recent killing of two Muttahida Qaumi Movement activists, exposition of actual killers and an immediate release of one of the council members and five councillors arrested in this regard.

The requisitioned session of the House, held at the City Government’s secretariat’s conference room under the convenorship of Naib Nazim, Tariq Hassan, urged the government to ensure proper treatment, safety and security of Umerdin who was injured in the attack. Expenses of his treatment be borne by the Sindh government, the resolution said.

According to the resolution, the council has decided setting up of a House committee to holding talks with governor, chief minister and corps commander persuade them to order an independent inquiry into the killing and arrest of the elected representatives, one of them Nazim of the Union Council, Gulberg, Faizanullah.

The committee will be headed by the Naib Nazim of Karachi or the Senior Presiding Officer, Muslim Pervaiz, the resolution said.

The council further demanded that the authority of transfer and posting of town police officers and DSP (Investigation) be vested with the elected representatives of the city district government.

Offering condolences to the bereaved of the deceased, Salman Farooqui and Masood, the council urged the government to announce compensation immediately.

Describing the new local government system as ‘best’, the resolution acknowledged that the system was introduced by President Musharraf. However, it regretted, a conspiracy was being hatched to demolish it with an aim of undermining the development activities now in full swing throughout the city. Other objectives, it added, were paving the for the return of ‘kalashnikov culture’ and pushing the city to lawlessness and disorder.

The council described the arrest of some elected representatives in the murder case as ‘a calculated move to implicate a member of the City Council and five councillors in false cases so that the elected representatives could be kept away from serving the people.

Accusing the police of acting at the behest of Sindh government, an Al-Khidmat group leader in the House, Muslim Pervez, said that anything could happen in a country where killers of a prime minister remains unidentified for decades.”

Another member, Siddique Rathore, lamented that on the one hand, police did waste no time in arresting elected representatives simply on the basis of their nomination in an FIR, while on the other, scores of people nominated in criminal cases were being inducted in assemblies.

Yet another member, Kishwar Khanum, maintained that the incidents of lawlessness in the city were reflective of the situation prevailing in the country. She said: “if we do not forge unity, situation will deteriorate further.”

Ghulam Abbas told the House that although both the newly- elected assemblies and the city governments were part of the Legal Framework Order (LFO), a conspiracy was being hatched to cause the collapse of the local government system within the next six months. He urged the fellow members to keep ready, under the leadership of the City Nazim, to rescue the system.

Jumman Darvesh, said that President Musharraf should act immediately to save the system introduced by himself.

Later, the House offered fateha for the departed souls of the MQM activists.