Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) on Tuesday accused Pakistan Rangers force of killing another one of its members while in their custody. MQM accuses the Rangers of having carried out dozens of extra-judicial killings of party members since the force launched a crackdown on crime in Karachi in 2013. Last year, the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances referred 55 cases of illegal abductions of MQM workers to the government, concluding a "pattern of specific targeting" of the MQM by Rangers.
MQM said Aftab Husain, a prominent party activist and an aide to Farooq Sattar, MQM leader in the National Assembly, was arrested at his house on May 1 and died two days later. The Rangers, say Husain was "wanted in several criminal cases" and had died of a heart attack. "During custody he complained of chest pain on Tuesday morning and was rushed to the hospital where he died," the Rangers said in a statement.
MQM have their main support base in Karachi, but law enforcement agencies and many residents accuse the party of racketeering, the abduction, torture and murder of opponents and holding the city to ransom by calling mass strikes at will. London-based MQM founder and leader Altaf Hussain called for an independent investigation into Husain's death by Supreme Court. Husain was "extra-judicially killed in Rangers custody", MQM said in statement.
INP adds: A close aide of senior MQM leader Farooq Sattar, on a three-month preventive detention died under custody of law enforcers, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) said on Tuesday. "MQM activist Aftab Ahmed died under custody around 4:00 AM this morning," MQM leader Khawaja Izharul Hassan told reporters in Karachi on Tuesday. "We demand that a medical board be constituted to thoroughly investigate the death of the MQM worker," said the MQM leader. A medico-legal officer at the Jinnah hospital in Karachi confirmed the MQM worker's death. He said that a magistrate would oversee the post-mortem of the MQM worker's body.
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