Mohajir activists apprise US lawmakers of human rights violations in Pak

A United States-based advocacy group, Voice of Karachi, has held important meetings in Washington D.C. with the Congressmen and members of powerful House committees over the latest situation in Pakistan and South Asia region.

Nadeem Nusrat, Chairman of the Voice of Karachi, met influential US Congressmen and members of House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ted Yoho and Tom Garrett, and held another important meeting with House Majority leader Tim McCarthy in Washington D.C. Representative McCarthy is the front-runner to become the Chairman of the House following the current speaker's decision to not seek the reelection this year.

Nusrat apprised the US lawmakers of the victimisation and persecution of Mohajirs, Balochs, Pashtuns, Gilgitis and Hazaras by the state of Pakistan. He briefed them about the role of Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in providing safe havens to terror outfits in the port city of Karachi. He said that the ISI was fueling extremism and terrorism as a tool to advance its own agenda in the region, which was destabilising South Asia.

He also told the US legislators that Pakistan's oppressed ethnic and religious communities were looking towards the United States and the international community to play their role in stopping state atrocities being committed by the Pakistani security forces, ISI in particular. He emphasised that the world needed to act to stop human rights abuses in Karachi, Balochistan, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Gilgit Baltistan in order to save innocent human lives.

In these meetings, Nusrat extended his support to the US administration in its efforts to curb terrorism and bring peace, harmony, and stability in South Asia.

The Voice of Karachi has been working to raise global awareness about injustices and human rights violations that Urdu-speaking Mohajirs and other ethnic and religious minorities have been facing in Pakistan. This group has also been running the Free Karachi campaign in the US since January 15 this year.

More than 22,000 Mohajirs have been brutally killed in military actions in Karachi since 1992. Enforced disappearances are a routine urban Sindh where hundreds of MQM workers and supporters are missing in the latest phase of security operation launched in 2013.