Karachi___ The City On Rangers` Remand!

On June 7 at night, Sindh Rangers raided the house of MQM`s Senior Convener Dr. Faooq Sattar located in PIB colony Karachi and cordoned off the area for some hours. According to Rangers, they had come to know that one MQM`s elected MPA (member of provincial assembly) was hiding at his house. However, they moved back empty handed.

Question is, if the Rangers really had any information about the presence of an alleged accused at Farooq Sattar`s house, then why did they not search the residence and arrest the wanted person? Why did they go back without him? If the purpose of their raid at MQM leader`s house not to harass him, but to arrest a criminal, then they should have taken the suspected criminal into their custody (if there was any). Otherwise, they should have apologized for the harassment over a disinformation regarding this. But, they did neither of the things and just went back.

Dr. Farooq Sattar (an elected member of Pakistani Nation Assembly as well as the parliamentary leader of his party) is not the first one from MQM who faced this sort of aggravation from the Rangers. In fact, thousands of the party members (from general workers to top leaders), have already been the victims of even worse ill-treatment from them. Dozens of party workers have gone missing after arrest and almost the similar number got killed extra-judicially. In fact, MQM, which is the most popular party of urban Sindh and has been consistently having the public support since mid-80`s, is practically facing an unannounced from the state authorities.

No one explains why it is so. Were any charges proved in any court of law against it? When no, can anyone be harassed, ill-treated, arrested and even extra-judicially killed merely over being suspects and/or accusations from the law-enforcement agencies? This is an undeniable fact that MQM and Urdu speaking community turned out to be the biggest victims of the long-enforced unrest in Karachi. However, instead of taking actions against the political, ethnic and sectarian groups involved in the terrorism, the Rangers diverted the operation to the already affected people. As a result, almost every Urdu speaking locality had to pass through seize and search operations, extremely insulting treatment and also arbitrary arrests by the Rangers, which not only offended the people`s feelings, but also created a fear in them.

The cases of missing abductees, custodial deaths as well as the dumped mutilated dead bodies added to it. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) also said similar things in its report (http://tribune.com.pk/story/906623/comparing-figures-more-people-killed-by-law-enforcers-than-target-killers-hrcp-report/)

Question is why is it so? Why does none of the state authorities, especially including the judiciary, take notice of the victimization that Karachi-ites have been facing for years? Who will provide justice to them?  

It is also on record that in August 2013, then DG Rangers Sindh Rizwan Akhter submitted a formal report to the Supreme Court of Pakistan over the lawlessness in Karachi. In his report, he informed the court that 19,000 weapon-laden containers of NATO had been stolen from the Karachi port during the period of MQM`s federal minister.

He claimed that these were the same weapons (especially 9mm Pistols) of the missing containers which were being used in the violence. He accused MQM of being behind that (http://www.dawn.com/news/1039406). In Addition, then Attorney General Anwar Mansoor also endorsed the Rangers` story by submitting another report to the Supreme Court. In the report, he had claimed that these were the same weapons being used by Karachi-ites for celebrating wedding functions.

However, the US authorities altogether rejected the story and made it clear that it did not ever transport any ammunition for Afghanistan via Karachi (http://www.dawn.com/news/1040766).

Thus, it became crystal clear that the fabricated story of 19,000 NATO containers was a deliberate act of preparing a ground to use force against MQM and its voters. Keeping in view this, should it have been left solely on the discretion of the same Rangers to accuse, arrest and treat anyone like animals?

Unfortunately, not speaking of taking steps to stop the abuses of power/authorities anymore, the author of NATO Containers` story (former DG Rangers Sindh) was promoted to be the DG ISI and now he is reportedly heading the operation in Karachi http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-karachi-insight-idUSKBN0NH0WK20150427)

Question is, does all this not endorse the MQM`s consistent stand that state authorities are trying to crush it by hook or by crook? Previously, it was only MQM which had been making this claim. But, now even some of Pakistani anchorpersons and analysts (who are considered to be close to army officials) are openly revealing that the army has decided either to separate MQM from its founder (minus-Altaf Hussain strategy), or, if it does not work, to physically wipe out the entire party of the country`s political scene.

God knows that best if the Pakistani military establishment will ever succeed in eliminating MQM from the country`s political scene or not, but it is for sure that the state-patronized ethnic cleansing of Urdu speaking community in Sindh will not bring any positive results for Pakistan at all.