KARACHI, Jan 7: Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain has expressed his deep concern over the trading in human organs, and urged President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to get the menace curbed through legislation.

In his statement, faxed here from London, he referred to the facts and figures in this regard, and said that the organ trading had become a lucrative business being run in the country by a mafia which capitalised on poor people’s compulsions.

Mr Hussain observed that in the absence of a law against such practices, traders from different countries had been visiting Pakistan in the garb of tourists to buy human organs and sell it abroad. The trading, he added, involved billions of rupees.

He noted that the WHO had also been calling for necessary legislation to check this inhuman trade whereas certain Islamic countries had already enacted laws in this regard.

The Muttahida chief referred to the Supreme Court’s suo motu notice of the situation. He said the bill moved by Haq Parast MNAs was pending with federal health ministry, and stressed that it should be tabled in the parliament at the earliest.

AWARD: The MQM has been given the Human Rights and Civil Rights Award in Prince William County of Virginia for the humanitarian services it had rendered during the devastation by tsunami in Asia, hurricane Catrina in USA and (October 8, 2005) earthquake in Pakistan.

According to a message faxed from the MQM International Secretariat in London, the award was conferred on the MQM organiser in USA, Aijaz Siddiqui by Corey Stewart, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors of the County.