InsafianPTI
Minister (2k+ posts)
Pakistan army backs drug cartel to control MQM, Baloch militants
Pakistan army is supporting a Colombian-style drug cartel in Karachi to help undermine the clout of a political party and to arrest Balochistan militants who seek sanctuary in the Baloch areas of the nation's capital, political sources have said.
"Not a day goes by without two or three of our workers being killed," Waseem Akhtar, a member of the national assembly who belongs to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement told this correspondent on phone after speaking at a rally against the daily killings of his party men.
He said in recent months as many as 42 mohajir youths have fallen prey at the hands of the narco-terrorist cartel.
The cartel is led by "Sardar" Uzair Baloch, a right-hand man of former Sindh interior minister Zulfikar Mirza, and his brother Zaffar Baloch.
Mirza, spouse of national assembly speaker Fehmida Mirza, is a bosom buddy of President Asif Ali Zardari since the days they were together at the hostels of the highly gay Petaro Cadet College in the 1970s.
"A situation is being created to pit the Baloch and mohajirs against one another and plunge Karachi into a civil war," said Nabil Gabol, who belongs to the ruling Pakistan People's Party and is a member of Pakistan's national assembly from Lyari, the Harlem of Pakistan.
Gabol confirmed the drug cartel is targetting innocent mohajirs. The cartel has made at least two attempts to kill Gabol in the last two months, and launched an attack on his home. recently
Gabol, who plans to visit the U.S. shortly to speak about the situation, said under patronage of the powers-that-be even dangerous religious extremist groups have made Lyari their safe haven.
"The entire populace has been terrorized," Gabol said, adding "Because of the killings of mohajirs by the narco-terrorists, common Baloch people cannot go to the mohajir dominated areas for jobs out of fear of retribution," he said.
Gabol, who was a favorite of slain premier Benazir Bhutto, has contested and won elections from Lyari since 1988 but a chasm developed between him and his voters as he lived in the richer area of Karachi called Defense Housing Authority instead of his downtrodden constituency.
"The situation is what is used to be like during 1947. Our supporters are being kidnapped by the narco-terrorists, their throats are slit and their heads thrown in the streets," Waseem Akhtar said.
An Americandocumentary production team called VICE, confirmed what Waseem Akhtar said.
The 1947 partition, engineered by the British, saw mayhem between Muslims with their Hindu and Sikh neighbors that left tens of thousands dead that led to migration of Hindus to India and Muslims to Sindh.
There are unconfirmed reports that the gangsters have also kidnapped mohajir women. "None is safe," Waseem Akhtar confirmed.
However, some policies of the M.Q.M. have also encouraged the growth of these armed thugs in Lyari. In winter 2009, the M.Q.M. targeted a popular community activist Nisar Baloch who was against the conversion of a 50-acre recreational ground in the Trans-Lyari area into residential colony.
Just a day before his killing Nisar Baloch had addressed a Press conference at the Karachi Press Club in which he bared the threats he was receiving from the M.Q.M.
Uzair Baloch shot into prominence after the killing of his mentor Rahman Dakait, who during his last days became a benevolent drug lord giving alms to widows and orphans. He has carried on with the same policy but still pledges allegiance to Zardari aide Mirza, even though the former Sindh home minister publicly admitted he had ordered Dakait killed.
The drug cartel has demolished homes of those who ask them not to sell drugs. "Twelve year-old Baloch boys are selling drugs in the nooks and corner of Lyari," a woman who has roots in Lyari and who is now visiting U.S. said on condition of not being named.
Informed sources said the military is backing Uzair Baloch, who is surrounded by more than 200 armed thugs all the time. The gangster has assured the soldiers he will hand over any Baloch militant from Balochistan who seeks refuge in the Baloch areas of Karachi.
Last week, Uzair Baloch men shot dead a worker of the pro-independence Baloch National Movement, Dr. Rahim Bakhsh Baloch at his medical store in Malir. In March another prominent worker Latif Baloch was killed by Uzair Baloch men during an armed battle in Siddiq Goth. The clash with the drug mafia left several residents injured.
Meanwhile, Balochistan's unofficial representative at the U.N. Human Rights Council Mehran Baluch, who is also the youngest and most loving son of Baloch freedom icon Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri, said on phone the Baloch team in Geneva is in touch with their counterparts from the M.Q.M. to find ways to defeat the conspiracy to pit the Baloch against the mohajirs in a civil war.
http://www.examiner.com/article/pak...yle-drug-cartel-to-check-mqm-baloch-militants
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