KARACHI: Denouncing Altaf Hussain statements, senior Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader Farooq Sattar on Tuesday said that his party should operate from Pakistan alone, an apparent reference to sideline MQM chief who had been controling the party from London.
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MQM activists clashed with police and ransacked a private television station in the southern city Monday, leaving at least one man dead and seven injured, after Hussain gave a telephone address to supporters from London in which he castigated the media for their coverage.
Sattar accused Hussain of repeatedly embarrassing the party saying, “We have made a decision to address his mental tension, illness or whatever condition he is suffering from”. The hunger strike was launched to protest the disappearance and arrest of their workers by the paramilitary rangers. The MQM remains the single largest party in Karachi for decades now and have dominated the political landscape for years sweeping provincial and national elections but since the clean-up operation began on the orders of the centre, the party has come under intense pressure.
Parts of Hussain’s speech that went viral on social media showed that while addressing MQM workers protesting outside the Karachi Press Club against “enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings”, he raised anti- Pakistan slogans and also called the country “a cancer for [the] entire world”.
Federal interior minister, Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan also repeated his earlier allegations at a press conference in Karachi that they had evidence that the MQM leadership in London had been getting funding from foreign sources.
He recalled that former United Kingdom prime minister David Cameroon had assured him of action against Mr Hussain when he had taken up the matter of PTI activist Zahra Shahid’s killing in Karachi.
He also instructed to beef up security arrangements of all the media houses. The senior membership of MQM confirmed that they are no longer under the directive of Hussain. “I would just say in a democratic society, critical opinion should be encouraged, not silenced”.
Mr. Hussain has been running the MQM from London, where he lives in a self-imposed exile, since 1991. He further added he was undergoing severe mental stress as a result of a series of events and disturbing news.
“Being a Pakistani, I assure the Pakistani people, establishment, Army, Inter-Services Intelli-gence, all higher authorities and leaders that I will never use such words again”, he said. “No one will be able to take Karachi hostage now”, said Chaudhry Nisar.
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Sattar Tuesday said “It is MQM Pakistan, so it should be operated from Pakistan”, he said.
