KARACHI - Sindh Rangers on Tuesday arrested around 10 Muttahida Qaumi Movement activists from the party’s public gathering held outside the Press Club against the remarks of Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar who criticised MQM chief on Monday for his speech against Rangers.
The paramilitary force also stopped MQM leader Farooq Sattar’s convoy twice during the day and briefly searched his vehicle.
MQM strongly condemned the arrest of its partys workers and supporters. “Nearly a dozen of our workers were apprehended by the paramilitary force when they were busy preparing for the protest demonstration,” alleged a party’s spokesperson while talking to The Nation.
“Besides apprehensions of the workers, it also mishandled the party workers. Even their original CNICs were also being checked. We were compelled to hold our programme under the intense harassment as the force surrounded the protest site,” he claimed.
Meanwhile, the MQM London Coordination Committee member Nadeem Nusrat also confirmed brief detention of MQM leader Farooq Sattar when he was returning after attending the public gathering.
According to MQM leader, Sattar was twice intercepted during the day first near Azizabad when he was coming to attend the gathering and another time in Saddar when he left the public gathering.
Muttahida Qaumi Movement on Tuesday staged protest demonstration outside the Press Club against the remarks of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, where the party leaders termed the statements of the PML-N leaders a conspiracy.
Addressing the protesters outside the Press Club, Sattar refuted Chaudhry Nisar’s claim that MQM was an anti-state party, saying Altaf’s recent speech was in favour of army and not against it. “We have always been with the army and it is the MQM that called for indiscriminate action against criminals by the army and even today we are only requesting that the brutalities and injustices against us should come to an end,” he said. He alleged that the statements by the interior minister were meant to create rifts between the party chief and the workers.
Criticising the stance taken by the interior minister, he remarked that Nisar and Asif had earned themselves the title of “enemy of Mohajirs.”
The MQM leader added that his party supported the ongoing security operations in the city but only if they were being conducted in an unbiased manner and not against one political party.
“Declare us terrorists by the Supreme Court or ban us but without proof, do not judge our patriotism and do not carry out our media trial,” he concluded in an aggressive tone.
Meanwhile, the women activists of the party also had a heated argument with the paramilitary personnel. They raised slogans in favour of Altaf.