KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement said on Tuesday that their party candidates who had filed nomination papers for the Dec 3 local government elections and their proposers and seconders were being `illegally` arrested in an attempt to stop them from contesting the election.

`Is taking part in politics from the MQM platform and supporting Altaf Hussain a crime,` said MQM leader Wasim Akhtar. `If it is not a crime, what is the justification for the raids and arrest of MQM candidates and their families?` Speakingata press conference atthe Karachi Press Club, he said the arrest of Haq Parast LG candidates left a question mark over the Qaim Ali Shahled Sindh government.

Giving details of the candidates picked up by Rangers and police, he said that since the beginning of the Karachi operation in September 2013more than 4,000 party workers had been arrested and 225 of them had become victims of `enforced disappearance .

He said that during the operation 55 MQM workers had been extrajudicially killed while 440 workers and supporters had fallen victim to targeted killing in the city.

`While not a single killer of our workers has been arrested and no missing worker recovered, the media trial of the MQM has become a routine by falsely implicating our workers in every act of sabotage or terrorism in the city.

He said that conspiracies were being hatched to snatch the MQM mandate at gunpoint by handing over Karachi to extremists.

He appealed to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Chief Justice of Pakistan Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif to take notice of the conspiracies and stop some elements from `violating the sanctity of state institutions`