E/CN.4/1997/7/Add.2 page 21 it withdrew in 1995, shoot and kill suspects. According to the authorities, most post-arrest encounters in which an individual is killed occur after a detainee attempts to escape or when the police party escorting a detainee to a recovery site is said to come under attack from his associates or enemies and the detainee gets killed. Although there is no doubt that police are targeted in Karachi, the alleged encounters are highly suspect given the fact that all the detainees are invariably killed by multiple gunshot wounds and the police suffer no casualties. By way of example, MQM (Altaf) activist Farooq Dada, who faced numerous and credible charges of murder and extortion, was killed along with three companions in an alleged encounter near the Karachi airport on 2 August 1995. None of the police escorting Farooq Dada were injured in the attack. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan also documented 200 deaths in Karachi alone during 1995 as a result of torture in custody. 79. On 9 December 1995, the torture-marked bodies of Nasir and Arif Hussain, relatives of the MQM (Altaf) leader Altaf Hussain, were found in a Karachi suburb. MQM (Altaf) alleges that the two had been taken into custody by the police two days earlier. Many independent observers believe the Government to have been responsible for the murders in retaliation for the murder of the brother of the Sindh Chief Minister. 80. The Government has used mass arrests to quell the civil unrest in Karachi. MQM (Altaf) claims that the police and Rangers have arrested 7,000 Mohajirs in numerous police sweeps. Many of those arrested were not suspected of committing a specific crime and were allegedly held until family members paid police officers a ransom for their release. These claims are supported by the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in Pakistan, which reported that the Government had made over 12,000 arrests on suspicion of terrorist activities countrywide, 9,200 of them in Karachi. The NGO claimed that 830 MQM (Altaf) activists and 189 activists of other parties remained in custody in Sindh. 81. As noted above, both MQM factions have resorted to extrajudicial killings and torture of their opponents and have targeted police and security officials. MQM (Altaf) has consistently claimed in public that its activists are innocent, unarmed victims of ethnic violence. In private they concede that individual activists may be responsible for some of the attacks on police and security officials. However, they emphasize that these are understandable revenge killings and that they are not authorized by the leadership of the movement. The Special Rapporteur believes that the public denials are often implausible and amount to condonation of the attacks. 82. During the Special Rapporteur’s visit to Karachi, Senator Haider organized a public meeting at which alleged victims, including many policemen and some Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) workers, and family members of victims of alleged MQM atrocities provided testimony. Most told similar stories of sons, husbands or fathers having been killed or tortured by MQM activists. The Special Rapporteur found most of the testimony plausible and accepts that MQM activists are responsible for some of the violence in Karachi. However, he wishes to emphasize that this does not justify the use of illegal means to combat MQM, nor does it exonerate the police and Rangers for the acts of torture and extrajudicial killings that it has committed.