Security beefed up ahead of MQM leaders' visit to Yadgar-e-Shuhada

KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM) changed its plan of marching towards Yadgar-e-Shuhada at the eleventh hour on Saturday.

The party has announced that only senior leaders of the party would visit the graveyard to offer Fateha at the graves of party workers and leaders.

Geo News footage from MQM’s stronghold of Azizabad and adjacent areas showed police blocking the roads leading to Yadgar-e-Shuhuda with shipping containers.

Farooq Sattar came out of his residence with his mother and wife in PIB Colony where his mother told media that Sattar was his only child whom she forbade to take part in politics, but seeing his passion to  serve the people she allowed him to join the MQM anyway.

In his brief interaction with media outside his residence, Sattar said he would leave for Bahadurabad where members of Rabita Commitee of the MQM would accompany him to Azizabad graveyard.

He told media after arriving in Bahadurabad that the workers of his party were not allowed to visit the graveyard in Azizabad. He said only MQM Rabita Committee were allowed to visit Yadgar-e-Shuhuda. "Once again injustice has been done to us," said he. 

Sattar chaired a meeting of the party leaders before leaving for Azizabad. Talking to reporters before leaving, he said" I had earlier said i would visit Yadgar-e-Shuda whether i get the permission or not".

He said mobilization of his party was being restricted by citing security threats. "Administration has informed us that our lives are in danger. I would ask why are our lives  in danger only?" he asked.

Sattar said the MQM has transformed into a different political party after August 22, a reference to last year speech of Altaf Hussain.

The MQM had announced to hold the march  a couple of days after the embattled party seemed to claim its lost ground in the metropolis when Farooq Sattar briefly resigned and quit the politics only to withdraws his decision hours later.

The senior politician said he withdrew his decision on the order of his mother who asked him to continue his politics from the platform of the MQM –Pakistan.

“I bowed to my mother’s orders,” he said at the press conference at his residence.