MQM raises battle cry against Taliban
By Irfan Ali
KARACHI: Demanding that a death sentence be awarded to the culprits, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, a partner in the Pakistan People’s Party-led coalition at the centre and in Sindh, observed Sunday as a day of condemnation against the flogging of the 17-year-old girl in Swat.
Throughout the city, MQM supporters hoisted black flags, wore black armbands and hung effigies of Taliban to express their anger against the flogging incident. The MQM Women’s Wing staged a rally near the Quaid-e-Azam’s mausoleum. MQM supporters condemned the incident openly as petrol pumps, shops, markets, residential and commercial buildings, overhead bridges were swamped with banners, posters, black flags and effigies of Taliban ‘terrorists’.
“We demand that the president, prime minister and the adviser on interior affairs order the registration of a case against those Taliban who flogged the girl on a false allegation,” Altaf Hussain demanded in his telephonic address. He added that these culprits must be hung and their bodies should be flogged in public so that nobody could think of repeating the deed. MQM’s Dr Farooq Sattar and Khushbakht Shujaat and Women Wing’s In-Charge MNA Kishwar Zahra also spoke at the rally, which was attended by a large number of supporters, with women outnumbering men.
‘No to Taliban branded sharia. O Taliban! Listen to us carefully, this rally is tantamount to your death,” their anger echoed in the slogans they chanted. The MQM chief said that an innocent girl was punished for a crime that she had not committed. “I make it clear that we have nothing against Pakhtoons but we reject the so-called champions of the fake sharia,” he said.
Hussain added that he had warned the government about Talibanisation earlier but many quarters had not paid attention to his words. “I pray that Allah almighty either guide you or destroy you so that the nation is free of you,” he said. The female activists continued to raise slogans throughout his address. They vowed that they would struggle and support all those who want to save Pakistan by defeating terrorists.
Quoting the investigation report of a private news channel, Hussain said that the report revealed that the girl was identified and eyewitnesses said that the barbaric act was carried out after the outlawed Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi’s accord with the NWFP provincial government.
It is said in the report that the regrettable incident occurred in the village Kala Kali of Swat district’s Kabal area 20 days before April 3, when it was finally aired on TV channels. He criticised the so-called clerics who support the barbaric act, saying that how have they not read the fourth verse of Surah-e-Noor: ‘And those who accuse free women then do not bring four witnesses, flog them, (giving) eighty stripes, and do not admit any evidence from them ever; and these are the transgressors.’
He denounced the statement of Jamaat-e-Islami’s (JI) new chief in his reaction to the TV channels. He said that the JI chief supported the public flogging of the girl. “I shall continue to raise my voice against the Taliban’s anti-Islamic acts till my death because they are defaming Islam for their vested interests,” he vowed.
Hussain went on to recite Surah Al-Noor Ayat 23 and 24: “Surely those who accuse chastise believing women, unaware (of the evil), are cursed in this world and the hereafter, and they shall have a grievous chastisement. On the day when their tongues and their hands and their feet shall bear witness against them as to what they did.”
He urged the women to learn the art of self-defence to protect themselves from the acts of the Taliban. “We shall not allow the Taliban to destroy girls’ schools and colleges,” he warned.
Hussain also strongly condemned the suicide attack at the Chakwal Imambargah and expressed his deep sorrow over the casualties in the attack. City Nazim Mustafa Kamal, City Naib Nazim Nasreen Jalil, MQM Rabita Committee members, federal and provincial members, MQM legislators in Sindh and in the National Assembly, MQM town nazims, naib nazims and others were present on the occasion.
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