MQM-L targeting former party men, opponents: Rangers

Author: Agencies

The Pakistan Rangers Sindh on Wednesday claimed that the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-London (MQM-L) had set up teams across Karachi to target political leaders who had quit the group to join other political parties, as well as its opponents.

The Rangers in a press release announced the arrest of two MQM-L workers allegedly tasked with sabotaging the election process by targeting candidates and local politicians and disrupting the law and order situation in Karachi.

The press release claimed that the suspects, Muhammad Bilal Lodhi and Muhammad Irshad, were associated with MQM-L’s South Africa network. The two were arrested from Orangi Town with the help of police.

The Rangers said that the arrested suspects confessed to their involvement in planning terrorist activities in the city ahead of the elections. They also admitted to planning attacks on PS-128 candidates Mohsin Javed (PML-N) and Arif Hussain Qureshi (PPP), as well as Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) office bearers Moin and Azhar, the press release added.

Weapons were also recovered from the suspects. They have now been handed over to the police for legal proceedings, the Rangers said.

The London-based party ran into trouble in August 2016 when a controversial speech by its leader resulted in many of its key office-bearers defecting from the party. The party had broken into two major groups – MQM-Pakistan and the MQM-L.

Athough the MQM-P is registered with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and is contesting under the party’s traditional symbol ‘kite’, MQM-L has announced a boycott of the upcoming polls.

Published in Daily Times, July 19^th 2018.