MQM leader Waseem Aftab, MPA Alam join Kamal’s caravan

KARACHI:  Senior MQM leader Waseem Aftab on Thursday joined Mustafa Kamal along with a sitting Member of Sindh Assembly Iftikhar Alam, asking other members of the party to join the new party of former Karachi mayor.

Flanked by Mustafa Kamal and Anees Qaimkhani,  Aftab, a former member of MQM’s Rabita Committee, party’s main decision making body, savaged Altaf Hussain during the press conference held at the DHA residence of Mustafa Kamal.

Kamal and Qaimkhani last week announced that they were forming a new party choosing the national flag for their group. Later, a sitting MQM MPA and former minister Dr Sagheer Ahmed also joined them.

Aftab who had headed the first Karachi Tanzeemi Committee and All-Pakistan Mohajir Qaumi Movement, has been away from limelight after the committee was disbanded while Iftikhar Alam was elected Member of the Sindh Assembly from Azizabad, where the party's headquarters 90 is located.

"When we belonged to lower-tiers of the party set-up we always thought we will serve the people. “But when we made it to the Rabita Committee, lots of secrets were revealed to us.,” he said without elaborating..

He said that when workers were not being allowed to collect hides this Eid-ul-Azha, the MQM chief forced them to do so. “A good leader would have cared for his workers and told them not to collect hides and Fitra, but the billions of rupees collected were more precious than their lives.”

He said that party workers were being used like toilet paper— and then discarded.

Talking about quotas in education institutions he said that no one will give Urdu-speaking space till they prove they were not “RAW agents”.

Waseem Aftab claimed that many other MQM leaders talk against the policies of party chief in private but they are scared of losing their ranks, wealth and life.