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| Imran mediating between Haqiqi factions |
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Friday, May 09, 2008
By M Waqar Bhatti
KARACHI: Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has been trying for the last few months to broker a deal between the two factions of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM-Haqiqi) that split during the previous government’s tenure, The News has reliably learnt.
Emerging as a staunch opponent of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) after the May 12, 2007 mayhem in which several political workers were killed in Karachi, Imran Khan subsequently launched a campaign against the Muttahida. His anti-Muttahida drive started with the help of the MQM-Haqiqi which provided him with evidence of alleged brutalities against it.
Officials of the PTI and both groups of the MQM-Haqiqi confirmed that they have had meetings with Imran Khan on April 17 in Islamabad separately, during which Imran tried to convince them to resolve their mutual differences and work as a single party against the Muttahida in Karachi. Although both the Haqiqi factions and the PTI termed these recent liaisons ‘routine meetings’ — and part of Imran Khan’s case against Muttahida’s London-based Quaid Altaf Hussain — insiders claimed that the PTI chief wanted the Haqiqi leaders to get reunited and face the Muttahida in Karachi as a single force.
It is learnt that similar efforts were also being made by other parties of the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM), including the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI). The APDM leadership was also in touch with the out-of-prison leadership of both the Haqiqi factions.
A leader of MQM-Haqiqi’s Afaq group admitted that a five-member delegation of their party had a meeting with Imran Khan in Lahore last month, which lasted for around two hours. Several issues, including reconciliation between the Afaq Ahmed and Amir Khan factions of the party, also came under discussion.
“Our delegation, comprising Akhtar Hussain, Shamshad Ghauri, Riaz Qureshi, Sohail Anjum Advocate and Rafi Dad, met PTI chief Imran Khan and discussed the Muttahida’s vendetta against our workers, the no-go areas issue as well as the frequent killing of our workers in Karachi,” he revealed.
When asked whether that meeting had any specific agenda, he said it was a routine meeting but admitted that Imran Khan expressed his wish of building unity among the estranged factions of the party, arguing that a single Mohajir Qaumi Movement would have a lot more political weight and clout than the one divided into two.
On the other hand, PTI officials confirmed that another delegation of the MQM-Haqiqi led-by former MPA Younus Khan had also called on Imran Khan in Lahore in April 2008 and they were also given the same advice by the PTI chief.
However, PTI office-bearers said that so far there was no breakthrough in their efforts to bridge differences between the two Haqiqi factions but added that efforts were still under way as some other parties were also trying to reunite the Haqiqi leadership.
The MQM-Haqiqi and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement have been bitter rivals ever since the former faction split from the main party in the ‘90s. The Muttahida retained its position as the main voice of the people of Karachi in subsequent years with the Haqiqi reduced to a small rump with tiny pockets of influence. At the time of their split, during the anti-MQM operation in the 90s the Altaf Hussain’s party accused its rival faction as a creation of the agencies. Many of the Haqiqi leaders and workers fled Sindh to take refuge in Punjab during that period and most of the Haqiqi leadership was eliminated, incarcerated or driven underground.
PTI chief Imran Khan could not be immediately contacted for comment but his spokesman Umar Cheema confirmed that the MQM-Haqiqi leadership has been meeting the PTI’s central leadership, including Imran, in recent months. Although he described these ‘secretive’ meetings as a bid by the MQM-Haqiqi to highlight their plight and miseries at the hands of the Muttahida, Cheema refused to reply to the question: why both factions of the MQM-Haqiqi were meeting Imran Khan alone and not the leadership of the mainstream political parties of the country.
According to Cheema, contacts with the PTI and the MQM-Haqiqi started when Imran decided to lodge a case in the British courts against Muttahida chief Altaf Hussain and requested people to furnish evidence against the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s ‘ wrongdoings’.
“People from all over the world, including the MQM-Haqiqi leadership, approached the PTI and provided him evidence against the Muttahida,” the PTI spokesman claimed. “It was the previous government that did not permit a Scotland Yard team to come to Pakistan and investigate the allegations,” he said.
But when asked why the PTI and Haqiqi leadership was meeting so frequently these days even though Imran Khan did not seem enthusiastic in pursuing the London case, Umar Cheema said the Haqiqi leadership was trying to gain political support through these meetings.
Cheema added: “But that does not mean that we want them to remain divided. We wish them to get united and play their political role in Karachi as effectively as in the past.”. A Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) spokesman, when contacted in this regard, said he could not comment on the meetings till more information was available.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
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