KARACHI: New footage has emerged after Amjad Sabri’s murder, showing MQM workers trying to dictate what is to be done with the renowned singer’s dead body against the wishes of his family.
Amjad Sabri, who was murdered in cold blood on Wednesday, was laid to rest yesterday next to his father at his ancestral graveyard in Paposh Nagar, according to his family’s wishes.
However, things did not go as smoothly as the family may have hoped, as it also had to deal with the commotion created by the MQM on the occasion, which allegedly tried to force the family into following its own funeral plans.
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In the video, MQM workers can be seen trying to shift the deceased from the Chhipa ambulance to one operated by Khidmat-e-Khalk Foundation, the MQM’s welfare wing, in a bid to take over funeral arrangements and claim the dead as one of their own, against the wishes of his family.
Sabri’s nephew can be seen in the video pleading with the MQM workers to let the Chhipa ambulance go and to respect the dead; however MQM workers continue insisting that the dead body be taken out of the Chhipa Ambulance on the street and put into KKF’s ambulance.
KKF and MQM’s workers can be seen paying no heed to the nephew’s pleas as they forcibly stop Chhipa Ambulance.
One MQM worker can be heard calling for Chhipa’s cold storage to be shut down. The same worker also demands that only KKF’s facility should be used for Sabri’s funeral.
However, MQM workers had to stand back once the police and rangers intervened, as can be seen in the footage.
According to reports, MQM also tried to convince Sabri’s family members to bury his body at the Shuhada Qabristan, MQM’s traditional graveyard near Nine Zero. However, this was also rejected by the family of the deceased and he was buried in Paposh Nagar Graveyard next to his father.
Before the funeral, MQM had made various claims about who was behind Sabri’s murder. Immediately after the death, MQM leader Farooq Sattar claimed that Sabri had been receiving threats after his refusal to appear on certain TV channels.
The MQM had also claimed that Sabri was murdered because he refused to join Mustafa Kamal’s newly-formed political party – the Pak Sarzameen Party.
Mustafa Kamal, a high profile defector from the MQM and once the party’s popular Karachi mayor, and his PSP have been in a tense stand-off with rivals MQM over control of Pakistan’s largest city and commercial hub, Karachi.
