Washington: Pakistan's army and paramilitary forces are committing atrocities against the Mujahir community in Karachi, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) alleged on Thursday in memorandum to the US government.
"Since the formation of MQM in 1984, over 20,000 MQM workers and supporters (mostly ethnic Mujahirs) have been brutally murdered by the Pakistan Army and other law enforcement agencies," the MQM said in a memorandum submitted to the Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Olson.
The memorandum titled 'SOS' was accompanied with a factsheet report about extra judicial killings, arrests and missing party workers in Karachi since 2013.
Copies of the memorandum along with the report was also presented to members of the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee by members of MQM during a Congressional hearing on Afghanistan and Pakistan on Capitol Hill.
"Since 2013, thousands of MQM workers have been arrested and tortured by paramilitary rangers, dozens have been extra-judicially murdered and hundreds have disappeared while their whereabouts are still unknown," the memorandum said. These facts have also been confirmed in the latest human rights report of the US State Department, it said.
It alleged that high ranking officers of Pakistani intelligence agency ISI are now calling MQM lawmakers directly and threatening them to either leave the MQM, join an ISI- sponsored political party, or face devastating consequences such as arrest, torture, or outright death.
"The Pakistani military establishment's main priority is to eradicate the MQM from Pakistan's political arena, and by doing so, pave the way for a right-wing or right-leaning military-sponsored setup in Pakistan, particularly in MQM- dominated cities of urban Sind province," it said.
