Three more MQM leaders join PSP’s ranks

Kamal invites Dr Farooq Sattar to switch sides, says Muttahida not the right place for him

Three members of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) severed their long held membership of the party to join ranks with Mustafa Kamal’s Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP), on Thursday.

Former MQM parliamentarians Shakir Ali, Naik Muhammad and Saleem Tajik announced their switch-over at a news conference.

Speaking at the presser Kamal said the party had expanded to Chitral and Gilgit Baltistan locally, while chapters of PSP had also been opened in the Middle East and Britain. In a reference to the PSP’s headquarters located in the posh DHA, Kamal claimed that, "We were told we would not be able to get out of Khayaban-e-Sehar."

Welcoming the three senior leaders, he said more and more members of MQM were joining his party. Kamal added that PSP had since its inception urged for the country’s youth to lay down their weapons and instead make use of computers.

The PSP founding-member then went on to invite MQM-Pakistan chief Dr Farooq Sattar to join hands with the PSP. 

He observed that although Sattar was a senior member but MQM was not the right place for him. 

In his routine criticism of the MQM, the former mayor said analysts know the party was supported by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) in the centre and by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in Sindh.

“The Muttahida’s motto is to keep people deprived of basic civic facilities.” Kamal said access to basic civic amenities such as education, health facilities and water was the right of every citizen.

In a sarcastic refusal to claims of MQM’s ‘criminal elements’ joining PSP for protection, he asked 

Dr Sattar to provide a list of MQM’s corrupt workers so that he could paste it outside his party’s office and keep them from joining the PSP.

Defending his workers he asked to identify a single event where a PSP worker could even be held guilty of throwing stones at anyone. “Peace in the city cannot be established without the PSP."

Endorsing widespread allegations of MQM sheltering RAW agents, Kamal said a RAW agent would be identified as one.

"Seeing the chief minister plead MQM's case in the Sindh Assembly felt like the sun had risen from the West," the PSP mayor quipped while referring to CM Murad Ali Shah’s speech calling for MQM-P being given a chance to continue its politics without the leadership of the party’s founding member Altaf Hussain.

With regard to innumerable arrests of young MQM workers for allegedly committing various crimes, Kamal appealed for the youth to be given a chance, "Exactly like the youth of FATA and Balochistan."

The PSP chief said the Director General of Sindh Rangers was focused on restoring peace in the city but it was the responsibility of political leaders to ensure that the peace was permanent.