KARACHI: Two Muttahida Qaumi Movement workers who had been missing for the past one month were found dead on Friday morning in the Korangi Industrial Area, officials and party leaders said.

Both the deceased were resident of Qasba Colony. The bodies stuffed in gunny bags were found in the Malir River near Korangi Crossing at a time when the MQM was observing a two-day protest against the “arrest and abduction” of its activists in the city and other parts of the country. The party leaders described the incident as “extra-judicial” killing of the workers.

Karachi East SSP Syed Pir Mohammad Shah said the two men identified as Syed Qasim Ali, 25, and Mohammad Ali Khan, 40, had gone missing in the airport area of Karachi and in Mirpur, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, respectively.

The police shifted the bodies for medico-legal formalities to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where hospital sources told Dawn that both the men were “assaulted and killed”. They added that one of them had injuries on the head while the other man had been smothered to death. However, the exact cause of the deaths was reserved for chemical examination, the sources said.

The Korangi Industrial Area police said Qasim was reportedly ‘abducted’ by unidentified men and a report about his being missing was registered at the Airport police station around one and a half months ago.

He added that Mohammed Ali had gone to meet his sister in Kashmir, where he reportedly went missing on March 13.

Following medico-legal formalities, the bodies were handed over to the relatives.

Speaking to Dawn, leader of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly Syed Faisal Sabzwari giving reaction on the killing of the ‘missing’ party workers said their names were in a list provided to the Sindh government. But, he said, their tortured bodies were received by their families.

“What option is left with us when despite approaching courts they are not getting any justice and the government is not paying heed to the grave issue, while police and the Rangers continue to arrest our workers without informing their family members about the charges against them,” the MQM leader said.

Mr Sabzwari said the incident had put a question mark over the performance of the authorities that despite the ongoing operation, armed people arrived in plain clothes in double-door vehicles without number plates, carried out raids and took away people from their homes and streets and after months of detention their tortured bodies were dumped by the roadside.

In the situation, he asked, what was the justification for continuing with the operation that appeared to have failed to provide security and protection to the people.

Earlier, Mr Sabzwari addressing a press conference in his chamber in the assembly building said that they were protesting against kidnapping of party workers and their extrajudicial killing. “Even today we have received two tortured bodies of our workers from Qayumabad who were arrested by law-enforcement agencies personnel.”

He said the deceased, Mohammad Ali, had been arrested on March 13, while Qasim had been taken away from Karachi airport on Dec 28, last year.

In the name of the Pakistan Protection Ordinance, he said, the extrajudicial killing of MQM workers had started across the country. He said the government had to be answerable to their disappearance and killings. “We wanted to take up the issue in the Friday session to ask the government about the assurance given by information minister that the IG had formed an inquiry committee on the issue. But by adjourning the session, the government has proved that it was avoiding the issue.”

“The matter was also taken to the courts about disappearance and extrajudicial killing of our workers and petitions were filed in the Sindh High Court and the Supreme Court but it is our bad luck that we are not getting justice from any court.”

He said Karachi was not Fata (federally administered tribal agencies) where people without uniform could arrive and pick up people from their homes and after their extrajudicial killing their bodies were thrown on the roads.

The government would have to respond to the blood of the party activists and provide protection to their life and property, he added.

He said the MQM had reservations over the Pakistan Protection Ordinance. “We have opposed it in the Senate and in the Sindh Assembly and will also challenge it in court. But the PPP stand was not yet clear as on the one side the PPP was opposing the PPO in the National Assembly and in the Senate while on the other side courts were being set up under the PPO in Sindh.”

On the issue of extrajudicial killlings, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf lawmaker Hafeezuddin said that it was a matter of grave concern and the IGP and Sindh government should brief the house in this connection.

PPP parliamentary party leader Nisar Ahmad Khuhro, who is also senior minister in the cabinet, told the media that not only targeted operation in Karachi was the demand of every political party but there had also been a demand for a military operation. However, he added, following the federal government intervention, the operation had been launched jointly by police and the Rangers.

Mr Khuhro said if people were being kidnapped or shot dead there was a need to increase the pace of the operation to make it effective.