KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement's (MQM) Rabita Committee on Saturday condemned the arrest of party worker, Rafiq Rajput, who was allegedly 'picked up by Rangers personnel during a raid at his residence'. The MQM has demanded his immediate release.

In an email statement, the party said that Rangers and other law enforcement agencies, including personnel in plain clothes, raided the residence of the party's Mehmoodabad Sector In-charge, Rafiq Rajput, and arrested the MQM post bearer.

Rajput was shifted to an undisclosed location after his arrest, the statement added.

The Rabita Committee statement further said that several MQM workers and post-bearers had been killed in Karachi but instead of arresting the killers, the party's activists and office-bearers were being prosecuted.

The statement alleged that party activists were being subjected to "inhumane torture" during their detention to obtain coerced statements that implicated the party in false cases.

MQM appealed to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Sindh Governor Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan and Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah for the immediate release of Rafiq Rajput and an end to what it termed the 'arrest of innocent party workers and activists'.

The development comes more than a week after the MQM had observed a day of mourning and a peaceful strike to protest the alleged 'extrajudicial killing' of one of it workers in Karachi by law enforcement agencies.

Also read: Missing MQM worker found dead, parts of Karachi shut down

The party is also under immense pressure and scrutiny after a Rangers report, submitted in the Sindh High Court on February 6, claimed that the MQM was behind the deadly fire that claimed the lives of at least 258 factory workers in Karachi's Baldia area in 2012.

Also read: Rangers’ report blames MQM for Baldia factory fire

The party's coordination committee on February 7 disowned Rizwan Qureshi, the alleged worker who set a Baldia Town factory on fire, and demanded that the government should hang the person in accordance with the law and Constitution.