LAHORE, Nov 13: MMA president and Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Qazi Hussain Ahmad has condemned the police torture and arrests of JI leaders and workers in Peshawar, Karachi, Hyderabad and other cities, terming it a display of state terrorism against peaceful political workers exercising their democratic right to protest.

In a statement on Tuesday, Qazi Hussain Ahmad said the brutality of police in Peshawar could be judged from the fact that they fired teargas shells containing the pellets used in the cartridges, adding that several protestors were wounded with those pellets.

Similarly, he said, police in Karachi and Hyderabad tortured and arrested elderly JI leaders including former MNA Mohammad Hussain Mehnti, former MPA Nasrullah Shajee, Mohammad Iqbal, ameer JI Hyderabad Shaikh Shaukat Ali and deputy secretary general JI Sindh Abdul Waheed Qureshi alsong with dozens of workers.

Qazi lamented that military rulers had resorted to negative and mean tactics by trampling all legal, moral and ethical limits. He said rulers must understand that torture could not suppress the democratic movements as the illegal rule of Gen Musharraf is taking last breaths. He said it was high time all opposition parties should get united on one point agenda of removing Musharraf and make collective efforts in this regard to rid the nation of the reign of cruelty.

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