HEAD OFFICE OF KHIDMAT-E-KAHLQ FOUNDATION ATTACKED BY ARMED TERRORISTS

THE TERRORISTS WERE PATRONISED AND PROTECTED BY THE ESTABLISHMENT

Karachi -- 18 May 2000

Today in the afternoon a large number of armed terrorists wearing masks attacked the Head Office of the Khidmat-e-Khalq Foundation (KKF), a charitable wing of Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM). These attackers were armed with sophisticated weapons and opened indiscriminate fire in the air and upon the building of the KKF. During this attack, they torched an ambulance belonging to the KKF Blood Bank. For nearly two and a half hour they sieged the KKF building.

The armed terrorists were wearing caps over their heads and had covered their faces with masks to hide their identities. Moreover, these armed terrorists also opened fire upon the members of the MQM News Section who had arrived at the place of incident to gather details. During the siege, these terrorists entered into the office, ransacked the furniture, burnt the files and looted valuable equipment.

The MQM Deputy Convenors Senator Aftab Sheikh and Senator Nasreen Jalil have strongly condemned this terrorist attack upon the KKF Head Office. They have said that this is a clear indication of the anti-MQM policies of the Establishment. Deploring this terrorist attack they said that the absence of police and other law enforcement agencies and the method in which this act was carried out blatantly strengthens our apprehensions that this was patronised and supported by the Establishment. They reiterated that after the failure of all the malicious conspiracies in the past to instigate sectarian violence and to turn Karachi into a colony of Punjab, the Establishment is once again conspiring to divide the Mohajirs on sectarian differences. However, the people of the urban centres of Sindh are aware of these conspiracies and malicious plans of the Establishment. They also demanded of the Chief Executive General Parvez Musharraf to take urgent notice of the terrorist attack upon the KKF Head Office, the torching of its ambulance, injuries to the volunteers of the KKF and apprehend the culprits responsible for this attack.