KARACHI, PAKISTAN, Oct 14, Reuter: A Sindhi Nationalist Organization on Friday denied official allegations that it was behind the murder of more than 180 people in Hyderabad, Southern Pakistan, and two weeks ago.
The Hyderabad Administration linked the JIYE Sind Students Federation (JSSF) to the massacre in a statement on Thursday.
It said the slaughter was masterminded by Qadier Nagsi, who it described as a JSSF Activists, in collaboration with Jamoo Arain, “a known criminal.”
A JSSF spokesman in the Sind Provincial Capital Karachi rejected the allegation.
“The persons named in the Government handout have no connection with the federation,” he told reporters.
“The Government is trying to find a scapegoat to cover its inability to protect the lives of the people.”
The spokesman accused the Government of seeking to blackmail the JSSF into supporting it in general elections next month and’ said the allegations would be challenged in the courts.
The September 30 massacre sparked off ethnic rioting in Karachi, taking the death toll to more than’ 250, Hyderanbad, Sind’s second city, and half of Karachi are still under curfew.
The Hyderabad administration said two suspects had confessed their involvement in the killing. They had named the others, who were being sought throughout Sind.
The gunmen drove separately into the city on September 30 in six cars. They opened fire at a prearranged time in their different target areas, then after 15 or 20 minutes abandoned their cars and left the city in different directions, it said.
Witnesses said the gunmen sprayed bullets at Friday evening crowds relaxing on the Moslem Holy Day, killing and wounding people at random. The statement gave no motive for the massacre.
Sindhi nationalists have fought savage battles with gunmen from the rival ethnic group, the immigrant Mohajir community, in recent months in Hyderabad.
The JSSF is the student wing of the JIYE Sind Organization led by Veteran Nationalist G.M. Syed.
They argued that Sind is exploited by Punjabis, who are in a majority in Pakistan and is being swamped by Mohajirs, Pashtuns and Punjabis.
Syed and the JSSF have been in favor of an anti-Punjabi alliance with the Mohajirs, Moslems who migrated from other parts of India when the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947,
But a radical splinter group sees the Mohajirs as the main exploiters of Sindhis.
The killings were mainly in Mohajir dominated parts of Hyderabad. Mohajirs there and in Karachi went on the rampage in reaction to the news.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 21, 1988
