The Pakistani intelligence agencies are behind the murder of Mohajir political leader, Ali Raza Abidi, claimed the chairman of Voice of Karachi and Mohajir leader, Nadeem Nusrat, on Wednesday.
"I would like to say categorically that Abidi's assassination was masterminded by Pakistani Intelligence agencies. I am 100 per cent confident that mercenaries hired by them killed Abidi, despite what is being portrayed by the intelligence agencies and the Pakistani media under compulsion," Nusrat said in a video message.
Abidi was killed in Karachi, a Mohajir majority city, on Sunday, by two gunmen riding on a motorbike outside his doorstep when he was returning from his office, a statement issued by Voice of Karachi mentioned.
"This has been the practice of the Pakistani Intelligence agencies - To hire hitmen, give them 9mm pistols with some level of training and some amount and the assurance that they would never be harmed or tried. This is how they actually use and radicalise unemployed youth to carry out their sinister motives in Karachi," Nusrat said in the statement.
He also said that the slain former legislator was a fierce critic of Pakistani deep state's undemocratic policies and their blatant interference in civilian affairs, particularly their role in creating various factions within Mohajirs' representative political party, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). "He was also a known critic of Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan and his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), who was brought into power by Pakistan's powerful military establishment through a heavily rigged election in July this year," the statement added.
Nusrat, in his video message, also talked about the treatment of minorities in Pakistan asserting, "Abidi was also a Shia Muslim and we all know that in a very radicalised environment in Pakistan how people from the Shia, Hindu and other communities including Christians, Ahmadis are being targetted. The treatment of the Hazara and the Pashtun and people from Gilgit-Baltistan, Balochistan - it's evident. Everybody knows about it."
"It is not a secret that Pakistan is run by its military establishment whose almost all hierarchy hails from Punjab. This Punjabi elite uses Pakistan, Karachi in particular, as a money-making machine and treats non-Punjabi ethnic groups and religious minorities as if they are subjects of Punjab," Nusrat added.
According to the statement, since 2016, many officials of Pakistan's powerful military intelligence agencies, including Pakistan's Inter Service Agency (ISI), had repeatedly warned Ali Raza Abidi to stop using social media platforms, or at least stop criticising establishment's policies directly or indirectly. Ali, who firmly believed in what he was doing, refused to be deterred and was killed.
Nusrat further said that he doesn't have any high hopes that justice will be served. "We don't have any hope that the system in Pakistan would provide Mohajirs with any justice. The killers of Pakistan's first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, were never apprehended, never caught, never tried. The killers behind the massacres in Karachi, in which tens of thousands of Mohajirs were killed were never actually arrested or tried. So we don't have any high hopes," he stated.
He also urged the United Nations (UN) to intervene in this "serious" matter and demanded Pakistan to allow a UN-led team of experts to investigate this murder, and similar cases of murder in the past.
US Congressman Thomas Garrett also condemned Abidi's killing and tweeted, "Targeted killings of political leaders are a leading indicator of an oppressive society. Whether government sanctioned or internal dispute, the killing of Ali Raza Abidi doesn't bode well for the present, the future, or minority rights in South Asia.
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