KARACHI: Rangers raided the Nine Zero headquarters of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement in the small hours of Friday and took into custody two senior leaders of the party, including the in-charge of its coordination committee, for “facilitating hate speeches against peace in Karachi”.

A heavy contingent of Rangers cordoned off streets around the Nine Zero and Khurshid Begum Secretariat at about 2am and entered the secretariat, arresting Kaif-ul-Wara and Qamar Mansoor, the in-charge and member of the coordination committee, respectively.

The Rangers personnel also questioned some other MQM members, including MNA Sufyan Yousuf and MPA Azeem Farooqi, but did not arrest them. They left the area after completing their swift operation.

In a Twitter posting at 4.19am, Rangers Director General Maj Gen Bilal Akbar said: “Those apprehended tonight from 90 have been arranging and facilitating hate speeches against peace of Karachi.”

The Rangers chief did not elaborate on the “hate speeches”, but it is widely believed that he was referring to two recent speeches of MQM chief Altaf Hussain in which he talked about “Rangers atrocities” and criticised Maj Gen Bilal and other officials of the paramilitary force.

Later, a Rangers spokesman said in a statement that the speeches maligned the officers and personnel of the Sindh Rangers and were inciting violence against them. He said Qamar Mansoor and Kaif-ul-Wara had been arrested in “a surgical operation” on charges of “arranging and facilitating hate speeches”.

Kaif-ul-Wara later released till Eid on personal surety

The spokesman said that a list of “such facilitators [of hate speeches]” had been finalised and more arrests would be made.

Later in the day, the spokesman told Dawn that Kaif-ul-Wara had been released on a personal surety till Eid. “He will return to us after Eid,” he added.

He denied that Rangers had raided the residences of senior MQM leaders Dr Farooq Sattar and Haider Abbas Rizvi. “We have intensified patrol in the areas [where the two leaders live] and no other worker was arrested,” he added.

Soon after the Rangers raid, a number of MQM workers and supporters, as well as parliamentarians, reached the party headquarters and protested against what they called an illegal raid and arrest of senior party leaders.

Dr Farooq Sattar said on the occasion that Rangers had raided the Nine Zero without any search warrant and their action clearly showed that the Karachi operation was only against the MQM.

Altaf Hussain also spoke on the occasion over phone from London and condemned the raid. He termed the arrest of two political leaders a serious violation of human rights, law, UN charter and Islamic teachings.

He asked his workers not to take law into their own hands, though Rangers had done a great injustice in Ramazan. He said the MQM would seek legal and constitutional remedies against injustices of Rangers. “We will face all concocted cases in courts and file petitions against the arrest of our leaders and workers.”

He called upon Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to intervene and stop excesses against MQM workers, leaders and sympathisers.

In a separate statement, Mr Hussain said an unannounced martial law had been declared in Sindh. He alleged that the PPP government had struck a deal with “the military rulers of Sindh” under which it would remove people involved in corruption cases from their posts.

Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2015

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