KARACHI: Members of civil society including workers of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has moved court to file a blasphemy case against Khurshid Shah, the opposition leader in the national assembly for his insulting remarks on Mohajirs (immigrants).
The controversy arose a couple of weeks ago when Shah, while talking to the media, termed the word ‘Mohajir’ as disgraceful and insulting. MQM, which came into being after the 1947 partition, reacted sharply on the remarks and termed it as a contempt of religion and Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).
Members of civil society went to the police station to register a first information report (FIR) against Shah, but the officer in charge refused to register a case.
On Thursday, the case was filed in the session court in the east district, asking the court to order the police to file the case against Shah.
The court has issued the notices to Shah, inspector general of Sindh, and the station house officer (SHO) of the Brigade Police Station to appear in court on November 28.
“Khurshid Shah said in his remarks that he considered the word Mohajir as ‘disgraceful and disrespectful,” Barrister Mohammad Ali Saif, the lawyer who filed the case for the petitioner told Gulf News.
“The word Mohajir has a lot of reverence and respect in the religion as majority of prophets including Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) migrated and thus their status is called Mohajir,” said Saif. “This is a religious term and whoever migrated for the sake of religion are called Mohajir,” he added.
“Calling names to the term Mohajir falls under the category of Blasphemy Law under PPC (Pakistan Penal Code) and it also invokes the clause of contempt of the Prophet,” he said.
Bickering between MQM and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the Shah’s party, began over the formers demand of creating more provinces by dividing Sindh province. MQM, a long-time ally of PPP, parted ways recently over the issue and was pushing hard for its demand to create new provinces.
PPP and other Sindhi nationalist parties were staunchly opposed to the MQM demand. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the PPP chairman has been saying that the division of Sindh was possible only over his dead body.
Awami Tehreek (AT) a Sindhi nationalist party called for a shutter-down strike in the Sindh province on Thursday and much of the interior part remained closed to protest against creating of new provinces or dividing Sindh.
Business centres, shops and petrol pumps remained shut in many towns of the province.
Traffic remained thin in different cities and rallies were taken out by the workers of the party. Women led the rallies in various towns including Sukkur, Mirpur Khas, Larkana, Jacobabad, Nausherorferoz, Kandhkot.
