It is hard to believe that the leader of a mainstream party could invite Nato and UN forces deployment in any part of this country. Unfortunately, that is what the MQM supremo Altaf Hussain did the other day while addressing his party workers in Dallas, Texas, from his London headquarters. If that was not scandalous enough he dared India to intervene. "India is a coward", he said, adding "if the Hindus had some sense of shame ("agar sharm hoti tau") they wouldn't have allowed shedding of blood of the sons of their own soil [India's]." Aside from other negative connotations this, of course, is an open invitation to a traditional adversary to interfere in Pakistan's domestic affairs, ie, if it is already not doing that through proxies. He then went on to hit territorial integrity of the country calling for a Greater Balochistan.
Altaf Hussain has actually lent credibility to a recent BBC report that quoted an alleged confessional statement of a senior party leader, Tariq Mir, who managed the party finances in London. In the purported recorded interview with the London Metropolitan Police Mir talked about having had meetings with officials of RAW and receiving some 800,000 pounds per annum from them as well as sending "people to India for weapons training." The BBC cannot be expected to air such incriminating stuff against a friendly country, India. Yet in the absence of a public admission of guilt by Mir or anyone else, the leadership could be given the benefit of the doubt. The 'Quaid-e-Tehreek' has now left little room for doubt.
In its first reaction the MQM Co-ordination Committee held a late night press conference. Since the speech was not telecast live due to a ban, the local leaders denied Altaf Hussain had talked about seeking help from India, Nato and the UN forces, insisting his speech was within the parameters of the Constitution of Pakistan. Soon enough, they found themselves struggling to control the damage done by Quaid-e-Tehreek's diatribe played out in the nightly TV discussion programmes.
Surely, Hussain knew that neither Nato nor the UN was going to respond to his call. India would be pleased to oblige but unable to do anything openly. His pleadings have been aimed at sullying Pakistan's image abroad. The reason is anger at the powers-that-be, and that triggers two things. One is the Sindh Rangers raids at MQM's 90 headquarters and arrest of several party activists, as per Rangers claims, half a dozen of them accused of target killings, including Faisal Mehmood alias Mota convicted of involvement in journalist Wali Babar's murder. The party says it is being singled out for search and arrest operations; the truth is that the Rangers action started with the Pashtun areas against Taliban elements and ANP associated offenders, followed by criminal gangs in the PPP stronghold of Lyari. As a result, most Karachi residents find the city a much peaceful place. The fear factor has almost gone. Giving strike calls - that usually left several people dead - at the drop of a hat is no longer a valid option.
The MQM's complaints about the Rangers resorting to illegal detentions and extrajudicial killings may not be unfounded, however. It is common practice for law enforcement agencies to commit excesses. According to MQM, at least 40 of its workers have fallen victim to extrajudicial killings during the ongoing operation; some 350 under custody activists are yet to be produced before the courts; while the total number of those arrested is 3,500. If the party does not trust the judicial system, which it says it does not, Altaf Hussain could have appealed to international human rights organisations, like the Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, for help instead of asking workers to stage demonstrations in front of the White House and the UN Headquarters for military intervention in Karachi, also urging India to do something about the situation.
Then the ongoing investigations into the two cases of money laundering and the murder of MQM dissident leader Dr Imran Farooq are said to be closing in on him. Interestingly, soon after the murder in 2010 media reports talked of two suspects' arrest on arrival in Pakistan and getting whisked away by a secret agency. The two men were kept hidden by the powers-that-be from considerations of their own. Having outlived their utility under custody the accused were recently 'arrested' near the Afghan border. The British police is believed to have lost enthusiasm to pursue the money laundering case (because of its wider foreign policy implications), but are pursuing the murder case. They have now been given access to the suspects, sending alarm bells ringing in the MQM London headquarters.
As for the leader himself, he won't face any problems on account of making the seditious speech. He is safe in London. The Interior Minister's complaints to the British government will produce nothing. But the MQM people in Pakistan have hard time having been forced to defend the indefensible.
The Rangers are not going to stop action. In fact, in the latest development they have written a letter to Dr Farooq Sattar with a list of "187 individuals of militant wing of MQM" nominated in various murder FIRs of police officers who participated in the early '90s operation in Karachi, saying "please hand over the nominated suspects to Rangers to investigate the murder cases of police officials." The least the party can and should do in this regard is, like the PPP and the ANP before, disown elements within its ranks who are accused of committing grave crimes. As the single largest party of urban Sindh, it needs to reassure rather than embarrass its voters and supporters. A change in the old strong-arm tactics is also in order. [email protected]
Comments
Comments are closed.