MQM calls for reintegration of MQM chief into national politics

KARACHI: A senior leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Nadeem Nusrat, has appealed to the Chief of the Army Staff, General Raheel Sharif, for some respite for his party members, urging the Army chief to reintegrate the MQM chief, Altaf Hussain, into national politics and to ensure treatment of Mohajirs as loyal and patriotic first-grade citizens. 

Speaking from London via a video link to the journalists gathered at a conference in Karachi which was also attended by a large number of supporters and all the senior MQM leaders, Nusrat appealed to the COAS and the prime minister to take notice of threatening calls to MQM's elected members, who are being forced to change their loyalties or face dire consequences.

He also demanded of the authorities concerned to lift the media ban on the party chief, Altaf Hussain, saying that he should be given the right to self-defence.

Although expressing his confidence that 99 percent of party activists were with the MQM, yet he said that legislators and key figures of the party were being threatened and harassed to join the Pak Sarzameen Party.

He also rejected the allegations of employing strong-arm tactics to run the affairs of the MQM, saying that he had parted ways with the MQM when he was diagnosed with cancer and got himself into academic activities for four to five years and wasn’t even in Pakistan.

Nadeem Nusrat said that Ashfaq Mangi’s name had been included in the Joint Investigation Team and everyone knew who were involved in China-cutting.  He said allegations leveled against the MQM chief were baseless.

Nadeem Nusrat said the current propaganda against the party was similar to the one in 1992 when an operation was conducted against the party, but all “the conspiracies to crush the MQM failed, and the party’s vote bank not only remained intact but it also got strengthened”. 

The MQM came into being as a result of “deprivation of the poor Urdu-speaking people, and the party was subjected to discrimination since its inception”, the convener of the party said. With regard to those who abandoned the party, he said they were “helpless and could not sustain the pressure to join the Pak Sarzameen Party”.