The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has dropped a bombshell, revealing wide-ranging India-MQM connections. It said in a report that “officials in MQM have told the UK authorities they received Indian government funds.”
The report added: “The UK authorities investigating the MQM for alleged money laundering also found a list of weapons in an MQM property.”
According to the report, the British authorities held formal recorded interviews with senior MQM officials who told them the party was receiving Indian funding. Meanwhile, a Pakistani official has told the BBC that “India has trained hundreds of MQM militants in explosives, weapons and sabotage over the past 10 years in camps in north and northeast India. Before 2005-2006 the training was given to a small number of mid-ranking members of the MQM, the official said. More recently, greater numbers of more junior party members have been trained.”
This report by a media organisation like the BBC cannot be termed as wishful thinking or media trial. It has shaken people from Karachi to Islamabad to the core, wondering what the government is planning to do about the party and its chief now that such serious allegations have been made.
Several questions come to one’s mind. How long should the government take to make up its mind on the issue? What is next for the party and its chief? Can this most-serious issue be put on the backburner like the operation against the TTP for several months? Should the government not play a proactive role and ban the party chief? Should a treason case not be registered against those heading the party? What should be the government’s response to India which has been interfering in Pakistan’s affairs? These are more than a few questions that come to one’s mind.
Meanwhile, the report further says: “In the course of the inquiries the UK authorities found a list itemising weapons, including mortars,
grenades and bomb-making equipment in an MQM property, according to Pakistani media reports that the BBC believes to be credible. The list included prices for the weapons. Asked about the list, the MQM made no response.” This is illustrative of a significant problem.
Not to forget, just recently, SSP Malir Rao Anwaar Ahmed had claimed to have arrested two Indian-trained terrorists of Muttahida from the city’s outskirts. He declared that MQM was “a more dangerous and anti-Pakistan organisation than the Taliban” and recommended a ban on its activities in the country.
According to the published reports, the police official said he had arrested MQM terrorists, Tahir alias Lamba and Junaid Khan, who went to India for terrorism training and then returned to Pakistan and carried out their activities here. He claimed that during interrogation, both the accused had confessed to killing dozens of people in Karachi.
SSP Rao Anwaar further claimed that “60 to 70 workers of the MQM from different sectors in Karachi were sent to India by their London-based leaders, who were in contact with RAW while the expenses of terrorists for going India were borne by the Khidmat-e-Khalq Foundation (KKF) of the MQM.”
The SSP, who after making these allegations was unceremoniously removed by the Sindh government, termed Muttahida as an anti-state organisation and said its “RAW-trained terrorists were behind the killings of doctors, professors, professionals and people from different walks of life.”
In the context of current report by the BBC, the government just cannot sit idle and become beholden to short-sighted, narrow minded tactical measures. The charges against the party chief are too overwhelming with on-ground realities and statistics presenting stubborn facts about the party’s activities.