KARACHI: Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, while talking in Geo programme ‘Aaj Kamran Khan Kay Sath’, said that an organised network of terrorists involved in sectarian terrorism had been busted in Lahore and its members arrested. The objective of the network was to trigger Shia-Sunni riots and to spread terror in the country.
Brigadier (R) Saad Mohammed said in the programme that Pakistan would have to ultimately act against the Taliban. MQM’s Faisal Sabzwari said that hundreds of party activists had been implicated in false cases.
Rana Sanaullah said that sect did not matter to the group whose members were arrested. They had killed Barelvi religious scholars Khurram Raza Qadri and Shams-ur-Rehman Muavia, Punjab president of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, who belonged to their own group. He said that no nexus between the Islamabad fruit market blast and south Punjab was found.
A former defence attaché to Afghanistan, Brigadier (R) Saad Mohammed, said that a minor attack by the Taliban will be responded by a minor attack from the security forces. However, if the Taliban launched a major attack on the Army or on the people then continuing the process of talks will become extremely difficult. He said that there weren’t any high expectations from either side for the success of talks. If there occurs a vacuum in Taliban’s activities, the Taliban would start fighting among themselves. The Taliban are not serious about talks, and Pakistan will have to ultimately act against them. Anyone who thinks that the matter will be resolved without an operation is seriously mistaken.
Faisal Sabzwari said that dozens of MQM workers were either arrested or kidnapped in the last several months, and later bodies of many of those with marks of torture were found in various parts of Karachi. He said that it is a very serious matter that they are going to the courts and holding demonstrations on the one hand while on the other hand they are finding bodies of missing activists.
He said that the number of incidents of extortion, kidnappings for ransom and other crimes are going up while on the other hand hundreds of MQM activists have been implicated in false cases.
Faisal Sabzwari said that they wish to see targeted operation in Karachi continue to deal with the criminal elements. If a political activist is involved in a crime, he should be arrested, but if the activists of a particular party only are targeted, there will be questions raised about the impartiality of the operation.
Faisal Sabzwari said that MQM activists have been going missing even before the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance, and unfortunately the tendency is still continuing. He said that it is very ironic that the PPP rejects the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance at the federal level but they have started following the ordinance in Sindh.
The host of the programme, Masood Raza, said that the MQM has alleged that death squad of the police is involved in extrajudicial killings of MQM activists. The MQM also alleges that 45 of its activists have been killed while many activists have gone missing who the party fears might have been killed too.
Masood Raza said that the MQM had staged a protest in this connection the other day and said that if their activists were not found, the party would launch a massive sit-in campaign. After its protest in Karachi the other day, the MQM also staged a country-wide protest on Friday against what the party says extrajudicial killings and arrests.
Masood Raza said that in incidents of sectarian killings in Punjab recently, those who were targeted were not just religious scholars but they also included doctors, teachers, lawyers, playwrights, authors, journalists and chartered accountants. In this regard, the Lahore police arrested six alleged target killers of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. The police alleged that the suspects had killed the Punjab president of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, Maulana Shams-ur-Rehman Muavia, on December 6, 2013 allegedly on the instigation of the defunct Lashkar-e-Jhangvi’s Malik Ishaq over some organisational differences.
Commenting on the trial of Pervez Musharraf, Masood Raza said the special court in Musharraf treason case has rejected an application against the appointment of the chief prosecutor after which the lawyers of Pervez Musharraf filed a new application at the special court for quashing of the case against Pervez Musharraf. Earlier, Pervez Musharraf’s lawyer, Farogh Nasim, asked the special court to try Pervez Musharraf’s associates as well because Musharraf alone is not responsible for the proclamation of Emergency.
