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Claimants to MQM see conspiracy as divisions deepen

By our correspondents
October 18, 2016

Sattar demands an end to ‘test of our patience’; Muttahida-London blames Sattar & Co

With the once powerful Muttahida Qaumi Movement facing the ebb and flow of an existential threat, Dr Farooq Sattar, who heads the MQM-Pakistan, said on Monday the party was being divided further, demanding that “the test of our patience should end”.

Addressing a news conference in Korangi at the soyem of a worker, Abdul Naveed, he said all ties with the MQM-London had been severed since August 23.

He protested that the MQM-Pakistan’s political and social freedom was being restricted although the party had given a lot of sacrifices for the country, and now for saving Pakistan “it stands united with the political leadership”.

A glaring rift exists between the two factions of the MQM, Pakistan and London. Both the factions disown each other and earlier some senior party members from London had announced that Sattar’s membership of the party had been revoked. 

The Pak Sarzameen Party, led by former Karachi mayor Syed Mustafa Kamal, entered the arena earlier this year and has been trying to emerge as the most dominant representative of the Urdu-speaking community that mostly lives in urban areas of Sindh. The fourth claimant is the MQM-Haqiqi led by Afaq Ahmed.

Fazed by these challenges, Sattar said: “Baanyaan-e-Pakistan’s sons are being pushed to wall. We have disassociated ourselves from London, but still we are being given the bodies in return. We are doing politics but in return we are being given the gift of bodies.”

Sattar said the number of missing persons belonging to the MQM was 130 and the lives of another 36 activists had been ended in extrajudicial killings.

Commenting on the Rangers claim that the workers been arrested in various criminal cases, he said it was the responsibility of the Rangers to tell the MQM-Pakistan if those arrested had been brought to court.

 

‘Only one MQM’

The newly-appointed London Rabita Committee member, Hassan Zafar, insisted that “there exists only one Muttahida Qaumi Movement and there is no London and Pakistan in it". 

"It was Farooq Sattar and Company who coined the term MQM- Pakistan," he said, while speaking at a press conference at the Karachi Press Club. "Our name is nothing but Muttahida Qaumi Movement," he added.

He said that people thought the MQM founder would never be back again, but “our party still exists”.

The MQM got divided into London and Pakistan factions after an inflammatory speech by the party supremo on August 22 put the Pakistan-based leadership in a difficult situation.

The MQM founder's diatribe against the country on August 22 drew severe criticism from all corners of society, forcing many party affiliates to voice their support for the country and part ways with the founder.

Led by Sattar, the MQM-Pakistan has since laid its own policy and maintains itself to be a party having no ties with the London chapter.