MIRPURKHAS: Scores of protesters led by councillors of Muttahida Qaumi Movement held a demonstration and staged a sit-in outside the press club on Wednesday to voice their angst over against loadshedding, shortage of drinking water, overflowing gutters and heaps of garbage.

MQM councillors Aftab Qureshi, Farooque Jameel Durrani and Afsheen Iqbal who led the protesters condemned the district administration for its failure to provide basic amenities to town residents.

They said that besides insanitation, acute shortage of drinking water persisted in the town for the past few months and held Asghar Joyo, additional deputy commissioner, and Syed Mehdi Ali Shah, deputy commissioner, responsible for the situation.

They alleged that over Rs10 million of municipal funds had been embezzled through forged bills and paid to contractor Yaqoob Rajput. Recently, police officials removed hundreds of venders and push-carts in the name of drive against encroachments, they said, demanding justice to venders.

MQM zonal in-charge Mujibul Haq, MPA Dr Zafar Ahmad Kamali and members of zonal committee also joined the protest.

Protest over activist’s detention

HYDERABAD: Muttahida Qaumi Movement activists and supporters on Wednesday held a protest demonstration outside the local press club against detention of Nadeem Qazi, a former sector in-charge in the party’s organisational structure, who was allegedly whisked away by law-enforcers in Latifabad a day earlier.

MNA Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, MPAs Abdul Haseeb and Ayesha Aftab, and MQM coordination committee member Iqbal Muqadam spoke to the protesters, who included the family members and relatives of Mr Qazi, an employee of the Hyderabad Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE). His office colleagues also held a protest meeting on the premises of the board after suspending the routine work.

MNA Siddiqui later told the media that the ongoing crackdown on MQM workers was in line with the wishes of some elements who wanted to dismember the party. He claimed that a media trial of the MQM was conducted and its workers were extrajudicially killed whereas hundreds of others had gone missing. “Even today, thousands of our workers are languishing in jails and are maltreated,” he said.

He said that when old methods did not work, some people from within the party were pitched against the mainstream MQM but now when this also did not yield results, ‘politically motivated’ arrests were being made.

Mr Siddiqui urged the judiciary to take measures to keep people’s trust in it intact.

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2016