KARACHI: Dr Ishratul Ebad Khan, Governor of Sindh, on Wednesday said that he would go all out to hang the perpetrators of the street killings on May 12, 2007 and would not spare them irrespective of the political party they belonged to.

Khan, who was a senior leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) but gradually distanced himself from the party during his 13-year tenure in the office, lashed out at former mayor of Karachi Mustafa Kamal, who made some accusations against him recently.

Known otherwise as a moderate politician, Khan dubbed Kamal as a man of inferior stock, possessing a bipolar personality, in an unusual media talk while he was visiting Ojha Campus of Dow Medical University.

Earlier, Kamal had accused Khan of being a bribe taker and corrupt politician, and asked the government to arrest him and put his name on the exit control list that bars a citizen from travelling abroad.

Replying to the barbs, Khan said that investigation of the May 12 incident was going on and no one would be spared if found responsible.

On that day in 2007, more than 40 people were killed during an unprecedented road blockade in the city on the arrival of the then suspended chief justice of Pakistan. Workers of the MQM, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Awami National Party (ANP) and other parties had clashes across Karachi city, while the MQM was in power and Kamal was the mayor.

Khan further warned that investigation of Hakeem Saeed murder was also going on and investigators had found some vital clues. Saeed, a former governor of Sindh and a respected personality in Pakistan, was murdered about a decade ago.

He also revealed that the investigators had also identified the activists of an organisation who were involved in storing illegal weapons found in the largest-ever cache seized recently in Karachi.

Truckloads of military grade weapons were recovered from the underground tank of a house near the MQM head office, known as the Nine Zero.

Lashing out at Kamal, the governor said the former senator had come to know about the MQM’s links with India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) but he still remained clinging to the senate seat instead of resigning.

He also touched upon the factory fire in Baldia town in which 240 workers were killed. The conspirators set the factory on fire after its owners refused to give them the money demanded. Some MQM activists who defected from the party and joined Kamal are the prime suspects, Khan said.

The governor observed between 2008 and 2011, target killings were rampant and all those who were responsible for the killings and now hiding in different countries would be arrested and brought to justice.

He also appreciated Naimat Khan, a former mayor of Karachi, who belonged to Jamaat-e-Islami, a conventional rival of the MQM, saying Karachi thrived in his tenure. But during the time of Kamal, the progress remained dismal.