AAFIA MOVEMENT

Where is our Muhammad bin Qasim, asks Fouzia

Aafia Movement here on Monday staged a ‘10th Ramazan – Mohammad Bin Qassim Day’ demo before the Karachi Press Club and demanded immediate release of Dr Aafia Siddiqui.

Dr Fouzia Siddiqui, sister of Aafia, addressed the demo via telephone said Monday is the day when the pleas of a Muslim woman locked in the dungeons of Sindh were answered and the oppressed were liberated. It is the day Quaid-e-Azam said Pakistan actually came into being the day Muhammad Bin Qasim liberated our Muslim sisters from non-Muslim captivity 1,300 years ago.

She said it is shameful to note that from the very soil where General Muhammad Bin Qasim liberated our sisters and declared dignity and honour for all, another general started selling our brothers and sister to a foreign master.

If we do not unite as a nation and stand up for the liberty of our sister Aafia and other missing persons, the drones we will continue to rob our integrity and honour, she said adding if we want a stable Pakistan we need to live up to our legacy and origin which starts with uniting to free our sisters in foreign jails like Aafia. It is the 10th Ramazan without Aafia, her children have reached adolescence and still ask the unanswered question when their mother will come home, she said. “Where is our Bin Qasim,” she asked.

She appealed to the government to respond to the screams of Aafia and help negotiate her release. “I am sure the release and safety and freedom of the daughter of the nation is just as important to them as saving the country from physical harm.”