Senior MQM office-bearer killed by paramilitary rangers in Karachi

A senior office-bearer of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has been eliminated in an extra-judicial killing by paramilitary Rangers and other security agencies in Pakistan's Karachi.

Asif Pasha was in the custody of security forces since February 2019 and his bullet-ridden body was found in the super highway area in Karachi.

According to the details, the paramilitary Rangers had arrested Pasha on February 22, 2019. The following day, the Central Coordination Committee of MQM had issued a press statement to condemn the unlawful arrest of Pasha along with other activists.

Paramilitary Rangers had briefed the local press and showed names of those they had arrested except Pasha whom they declared an absconder. The MQM showed deep concern over it and feared his custodial death.

In its SOS letter, the MQM also informed the United Nations and other international human rights orgsations of the imminent threat to the life of Pasha.

The family of Pasha had also filed a petition in the Sindh High Court for his safe return but despite the passage of over a year, justice was denied. The family continued to look for him everywhere but to no avail.

The party said that the concerns it expressed in its statement on February 25, 2019, about threats to the life of Pasha proved correct as his body was found dumped in the bushes in the superhighway area in Karachi.

The MQM said it is a "barbaric example" of custodial death at the hands of Pakistan's armed forces. Local police informed Pasha's elder brother about the body found dumped in the bushes.

The Central Coordination Committee of MQM said that the cold-blooded custodial death of Pasha was part of the ongoing genocide of Mohajirs in Karachi.

The committee said that since the MQM has declared a combined struggle for the unity and solidarity of the permanent residents of Sindh and Mohajirs for their right of freedom, the ongoing state operation against them has been intensified and a series of custodial deaths are happening every day.

While Pasha died in the custody of the paramilitary rangers, a Jeay Sindh Quami Mahaz (Areser group) activist Niaz Lashari was also tortured to death and his mutilated body was dumped in Gulshan-e Hadid in the east of Karachi. Lashari was also arrested from the premises of a court in Hyderabad earlier.

The MQM urged the Supreme Court of Pakistan to take cognisance of the custodial deaths of the missing political activists and to protect them as their lives are under serious threats.

It also appealed to the UN human rights bodies to take cognisance of the MQM and Jeay Sindh activists, and their enforced disappearances in Pakistan and to press Islamabad to end the atrocities.

Founder leader of MQM Altaf Hussain strongly condemned the extrajudicial killing of Pasha and called it a part of the ongoing genocide of Mohajirs in the name of state operation by Army, paramilitary rangers and security agencies.

He appealed to the international community and human rights orgsations to raise their voice against state brutalities on Mohajirs and other communities.

( With inputs from ANI )