MQM founder puts party office on sale for £1,000,000

LONDON: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) founder Altaf Hussain has put on sale for £1,000,000 the party’s iconic International Secretariat, ahead of his trial at the Old Bailey on charges related to incitement of terrorism.

Through two local estate agents in the area of Edgware, the MQM supremo is desperately trying to sell the entire office floor with parking of six cars for the asking price of £1,000,000 but he has not received offer in over two months.

This correspondent visited the “Elizabeth House, 54-58 1st Floor, High Street, Edgware HA8 7EJ” after making an appointment with the local estate agent who is marketing the office for sale. It is understood that the MQM leader wants to raise funds to fund his expensive defence at the Old Bailey in about four months when the formal trial will begin lasting for about three weeks.

The estate agent is asking the interested buyers to pick up the deal as it is on a walking distance to Edgware Underground Station (Northern Line) and has passenger lift, manned reception and air conditioning.

The marketing brochure says: “The first floor of Elizabeth House is available to purchase and would suit owner occupiers and investors looking to modernise the space. The floor is arranged with a reception area leading into a large office space and a number of private offices, meeting rooms and store rooms with the benefit of a large kitchen / break out room.”

The office has been on sale for several weeks now. More than a dozen interested buyers have visited the property but so far the MQM leader has not received any offer. A source said: “Altaf Hussain will have to reduce the price by £50,000-£100,000 if he is serious in selling the property.

The property market is down at the moment and there are not many buyers for expensive properties. This property is in a great location and Mr Hussain will not struggle for long to sell it.” The MQM-London’s office bearers have moved to a house on Whitchurch Lane where they are operating from a three bedroom.

MQM-London’s operations are now reduced to just about five fulltime staff members, including Mustafa Azizabadi, Qasim Ali Raza, Adil Ghaffar Advocate, Sufyan Yusuf and Tariq Javed.

The source said that it was not wise to continue holding the Elizabeth House when the party is almost completely done with Karachi and there is nothing happening for the MQM-London.

The MQM’s International office has a great emotional and political value for Pakistan. It is from here that Hussain ruled Karachi for nearly two decades with an iron fist, using three rooms and two telephone lines. It is in the same Elizabeth House which housed dozens of MQM leaders who have either formed PSP under Mustafa Kamal, joined PTI government under the banner of MQM-Pakistan, gone silent or chosen their separate path from the MQM supremo. All of them used this office, waited at this place for days and months on end to get one glimpse of Altaf Hussain or a hand shake and picture with him or catch his sight. It is the same place that used to be manned like a fiefdom of power for years and MQM officials enforced strict discipline at the colleagues in the UK and also in Pakistan.

It is from the same place Altaf Hussain brought Karachi to a standstill with one phone call from here and from Musharraf to PPP government, all would queue at this place to be on his right side.

That power, allure and hold is no more. The MQM founder has moved out and the party’s once nerve centre is up for sale. Altaf Hussain will go on trial at the Old Bailey on June 1, 2020, in a terrorism case brought against him by Crown Prosecution Service’s Counter Terrorism Division related to incitement speech made in August 2016 from London to Karachi. Hussain, 66, who lives in Mill Hill, north London, has been charged under the Terrorism Act 2006.

He has been charged for Intentionally Encouraging or Assisting Offences, Contrary to Section 44 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 in relation to his August 16, 2016 speech from London and the violence that followed in Karachi after that speech.