Barring Nine Zero, MQM-P allowed to reopen all sector and unit offices

Authorities impose prerequisite of providing land records,

finds The News investigation

An investigation by The News into the affairs of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) has found that the party has been allowed to reopen all its sector and unit offices in Sindh with the exception of its headquarters Nine Zero.

The MQM-P has been asked to produce documents of its properties to reclaim possession of the offices situated in the urban parts of the province, especially in Karachi.

After getting the green light from the authorities, the party has started collecting the lease documents of its offices’ lands to fulfil all the legal obligations before it could repossess its properties.

Reports available with The News show that the Sindh Rangers have handed over the MQM-P’s properties to the Sindh police. However, the permission to reopen all the offices comes with the precondition of providing the authorities with the land records.

Police and Rangers launched a crackdown on the MQM’s offices after party founder Altaf Hussain delivered a public speech over the phone on August 22 last year, inciting party workers to storm media houses.

The MQM’s offices were consequently closed, and the notices put up outside each of them warned of action against anyone who tried to reopen them.

Following the debacle, Dr Farooq Sattar had distanced himself and other party members from Hussain to form the MQM-P faction. Now, the authorities have granted Sattar permission to regain possession of the offices excluding Nine Zero.

However, the MQM-P chief was told that possession of the party’s public secretariat, the Khursheed Begum Memorial Hall, would be granted after provision of the land’s lease documents, and of all the closed or demolished offices after submitting their land records.

Three days after Hussain’s anti-state speech, the chief minister had chaired a high-level meeting on law and order, and ordered razing all of the MQM’s offices.

The News investigation also found that possession of the offices would be granted in phases, and all of them would be operational before the next general elections.

In the first phase, the MQM-P has been permitted to reopen its Bahadurabad and Gulshan-e-Iqbal sector offices in Karachi as well as its district headquarters in Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas.

Karachi police chief Mushtaq Mehar told The News that only those offices were closed that were built on lands that belonged to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation and the Sindh government’s education and health departments. “The offices were closed after the relevant departments submitted their land records.”

AIG Mehar said the police did not close any of the offices but the party’s office-bearers themselves had abandoned them. He clarified that the city police had nothing to do with closing and reopening the offices.

Verifying the reports of reopening of the offices, MQM-P Information Incharge Ameenul Haque said the Bahadurabad sector office had been reopened, and the party’s head office was temporarily moved there.

Haque said the process of reopening of the Gulshan-e-Iqbal sector office was under way, and the party had completed all the paperwork and submitted it to the authorities to reclaim the office’s possession.

He added that the party was also in the process of completing the paperwork for the district headquarters in Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas, and that the offices would reopen soon.