60 MQM men buried at Margalla during Benazir govt: Shujaat

ISLAMABAD - PML-Q President Ch Shujaat Hussain has said that as many as sixty MQM workers killed during second tenure of Benazir Bhutto were buried at Margalla Hills. Talking to TheNation here on Wednesday, Shujaat clarified that he had not said to a private TV channel that those 60 MQM men had been killed in the operation cleanup launched in 1992 during the first regime of PML-N. These 60 men had been killed and buried at the hills of Margalla during operation conducted by Naseerullah Babar in the second regime of Benazir Bhutto (1993-1996), he said. Shujaat said that the matter had come to the surface in the second tenure of Nawaz Sharif (1997-1999) when he was holding the portfolio of Interior Ministry. The matter of the killing of 60 MQM men and their burial had been raised in the Senate Standing Committee on Interior, headed by Asfandyar Wali in 1997, by MQM senator Nasreen Jalil, he added. PML-Q President said when he had been asked to give his version on the issue before Senate standing committee in the capacity of Interior Minister, he had told the committee that such an incident had occurred in the course of operation conducted by Naseerullah Babar. PML-Q President said that it had become a fashion to criticise agencies. The secret agencies, either civilian or military, work under the policy of the government and they do not function arbitrarily, he added. On current sugar crisis in the country, he said that 60 per cent sugar mill owners were the part of the government. He further said that some bigwigs in the government were patronising hoarders of wheat and sugar.