Opposition party accuses army of executing 4 missing activists
KARACHI: A Pakistani paramilitary force said it had killed four terror suspects during a gunfight in Karachi, but a leading opposition party said the men were executed as part of an ongoing political vendetta.
Rights groups say authorities have resorted to hundreds of extra-judicial killings during a “clean-up” operation that began in 2013 in a city that has long been plagued by criminal, political, ethnic and Islamist violence.
A spokesman for the paramilitary Rangers said that the incident took place after they raided a hideout in city’s west used by the killers of Hasnain Bukhari, a lawyer who was murdered in March this year.
“Upon seeing the Rangers, the terrorists opened intense fire, which was effectively responded to,” the spokesman said.
“During the encounter four terrorists died whereas one solider of the Rangers was wounded,” he added.
Those killed were identified as members of a team of target killers of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the Rangers said in a statement.
The statement alleged that the four men were involved in the killing of as many as 28 people, including police officials and a lawyer.
But the MQM, the main political party in the city of 20 million, also issued a statement saying the four were party activists who “disappeared” months ago after being kidnapped by the Rangers.
Aminul Haq, a senior MQM leader, said the families had identified three of the men and lodged missing persons cases for them at the time of their disappearance.
In the past two years, 45 party workers were murdered extra judicially, while 165 have gone missing.
The MQM has itself been accused of using extortion and murder to cement its grip on power — charges it denies.
Political observers believe the party, which was close to the country’s powerful military establishment during the 19992008 rule of strongman Pervez Musharraf, has since fallen out of favour.
Tensions have been rising in recent months between MQM chief Altaf Hussain, who rules the party from London, and the military.
The rift widened in June when Mr Hussain, in an address to his workers, accused the Rangers of torturing and killing party workers and dumping their mutilated bodies on roadsides.
Recently a court slapped a complete ban on the broadcast or publication of Mr Hussain’s speeches in the national media.
Mr Haq said the party would challenge the verdict in the Supreme Court.
The MQM is a secular political party in Pakistan that mainly represents Urduspeaking Mohajirs.
The student branch, the All Pakistan Muhajir Student Organisation, was founded in 1978 by Mr Hussain and gave rise to the Muhajir Qaumi Movement in 1984.
In 1997, the MQM officially removed the term Muhajir from its name (which refers to its Urdu roots) and replaced it with Muttahida, meaning “United”.
The MQM — a party that holds strong mobilising potential in Karachi — is traditionally the dominant political force in the city.
It is also the second largest party in Sindh and the fourth largest party in the National Assembly of Pakistan after the Pakistan Muslim League, Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf.
The party has kept its influence over Pakistan’s federal government as a key coalition partner since the late 1980s.
However, MQM parliamentarians resigned from the National Assembly, Senate and Provincial Assembly of Sindh in protest against a crackdown on criminal elements alleged to have close links with top MQM leaders.