KARACHI: Karachi mayor and Muttahida Qaumi Movement leader (MQM) Waseem Akhtar and deputy mayor Arshad Vohra, also of the MQM, took oath at Bagh-i-Quaid-i-Azam on Tuesday.

Akhtar opened his speech with a slogan of “Long live Muttahida, long live Bhutto and long live Imran Khan.”

“I would like to thank the people of Karachi for electing members of different parties to these positions.”

Karachi’s new mayor also thanked his own party members, and members of the PPP, PML-N, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Jamaat-i-Islami, who participated in the election.

Akhtar is among four mayors and 200 chairmen of as many municipal bodies across Sindh who took oath of their offices today.

Karachi’s deputy mayor Arshad Vohra at Bagh-i-Quaid-i-Azam. DNA News

Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) Commissioner Samiuddin Siddiqui administered oath to the mayor and deputy mayor.

Akhtar is the first person in the country to have won the mayoral election from prison with a comfortable margin against his rival candidate pitted by a six-party alliance formed to contest against the the MQM.

The MQM leader has been in prison since July 19 after an Anti-Terrorism Court dismissed his pre-arrest interim application in a case for treatment of terrorists, will run the metropolis via “video link” from his prison cell.