KARACHI, Sept 12: As Karachi braces itself for a strike on Thursday against the local government system, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has announced three days of mourning for hundreds of victims of the Baldia factory blaze.

The Sindh Bachayo Tehrik (Save Sindh Movement) has called for a province-wide strike for Sept 13 to protest over the promulgation of the Sindh Peoples Local Government Ordinance 2012.

Other political parties, including the Pakistan Muslime League-Nawaz (PML-N), Awami National Party (ANP), Pakistan Muslim League-Functional, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), MQM-Haqiqi and National Peoples Party, put their weight behind the strike call. However, PTI, ANP, PML-N, Sindh United Party called off the strike and also announced to mark a day of mourning.

Jamaat-i-Islami also suported the call.

The MQM and the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had urged the people to make the strike unsuccessful in the midst of fears that Sindh would witness a showdown between the supporters and opponents of the new LG ordinance.

The MQM’s coordination committee announced on Wednesday to mourn for three days during which all of its organisational activities will also remain suspended.

A senior leader of the party told Dawn that the party has suspended all its organisational activities to pay full attention to recovery activities. However, he made it clear that the decision was not political or in any way supported the call for strike. “It was taken to mourn a national tragedy.”

The press release said that the meeting also decided that all the party workers would wear black armbands while black flags would be hoisted at all party offices.

Gatherings will be held to offer Fateha and for the people who died in factories in Karachi and Lahore. The charity wing of MQM, Khidmat-i-Khalq Foundation, will make arrangements for transporting the victims’ bodies to their hometowns in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and rural Sindh. The coordination committee has directed its office-bearers and party workers to participate in the last rites of the victims.

The MQM has also demanded a high-level inquiry into the blaze and also demanded that the Punjab government announce compensation for the heirs of the people who died in the factory in Lahore.