MQM says govt planning bloodbath
By Our Reporter

KARACHI, Sept 2: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement urged the people on Thursday to remain indoors on Sept 4 "for their own security" as it alleged that the regime had planned large-scale killings to sabotage the strike and to apprehend MQM activists.

Speaking at a news conference at Nine-Zero, deputy convener of the MQM coordination committee, Senator Aftab Shaikh, warned the administration that if any activist, or an ordinary citizen, including transporter and trader, was killed by the police during strike on Saturday, enraged people could force an indefinite halt to business and other activities in Karachi and the rest of the Sindh province.

He claimed that the government had planned to kill the MQM supporters, already in its custody, besides targeting people during the strike through plainclothed trigger-happy policemen. He alleged that the administration had hatched the conspiracy to find a pretext for implicating the MQM and its activists.

He claimed that besides MQM activists transporters and traders were also on the hit list, and said it was just possible that policemen would also be targeted by the government agencies, to malign the MQM. He said the strike was against the GST, unemployment, inflation, and a host of other problems being faced by the people, including police excesses.

Criticizing reported directive of "shoot at sight" to the rangers and the police, Aftab Shaikh said it was and "open general licence" given to the security forces to kill the people. "The directive is deplorable as it is inhuman and amounts to trespass on the jurisdiction of the judiciary," he added.

He feared that many of the 1,000 arrested MQM supporters would be extra- judicially killed and the police would claim that they were killed on strike day while trying to force people to close shops and stop vehicles from plying.

He said in order to sabotage the strike the government had not paid its employees their salary on first or second. They have been told that salary would be paid on Sept 4. The employees had been asked to come to offices on Sept 3 and stay there overnight and work on the strike day, he added. This, he said, was illegal confinement and an unethical move on the part of the regime "which has turned the province into a police state."

Referring to police excesses, he alleged that plainclothed and uniformed policemen were snatching documents from motorists and telling them to collect the same on Sept 4 from the same spot. He alleged PML workers were also engaged in this exercise. He made it emphatically clear that the MQM had not appealed to its underground activists to come out of their hideouts. Such talk, he said, was a trap to arrest and kill them.

He said since the imposition of governor's rule in Sindh 22 MQM activists had been killed extarjudicially, but no action had been taken so far against those police officials who were involved in the crime. So far about 50 persons belonging to the MQM had been sentenced to death and siege-and-arrest operation was continuing, he added.

He said despite provocation, the MQM had not taken the law into its hand ever since the protest plan was launched. The fact that the administration did not issue any handout in which the MQM had been implicated for creating law and order situation during this period proved that the party was pursuing a peaceful course, he added.

Senator Shaikh accused the Nawaz Sharif government of sabotaging the democratic dispensation and of endangering national security. He also deplored the post midnight raid on the Khurshid Memorial Hall, one of the MQM establishments in the Nine-Zero complex. He apprehended that the administration in its zest would also raid Nine-Zero and might "discover" arms. He suggested that journalists could remain there until the strike was over to see for themselves that there were no arms there.

ALTAF'S ADDRESS: Founder of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Altaf Hussain, would address the MQM protest rally at the Fresco Chowk on Friday.