Imprisoned Mr Waseem Akhter of the Mutahida Qaumi Movement who has been in the custody and imprisoned in central jail since July and is suffering from the number of cases and two cases had already been registered.
He had been elected as a mayor of the biggest city of Pakistan now and he has almost 4 years to hold mayor office.He vows for the people but it is unacceptable that Mr Akhter runs the metropolis’s affairs from inside prison.
However, Sindh Home department issued a notification for constitution of a joint interrogation Team (JIT) to interrogate Mr Akhter. If the Karachi mayor was to be released, it would be in favor of Mr Akhter and MQM too. As the provincial government has kept many civic powers, it could be said that the elected heads of municipal bodies in Sindh will not have full authority over their respective jurisdictions.
This situation needs to be reversed as municipal bodies must have more than just ceremonial powers to carry out their tasks.
However in the absence of mayor from his office handling the metropolis affairs could be tough. Whereas, provincial government ,federal government and (JIT) should look into this matter.
Shaheer Mustafa
Nov 25th, 2016
Karachi.