Kamal warns Sattar against forcing defectors to return to MQM-Pakistan

Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) chief Mustafa Kamal has warned Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) leader Dr Farooq Sattar against allegedly forcing defectors to return to the latter’s party.

Addressing a news conference on Thursday, Kamal claimed that Sattar has been making calls to MQM-P leaders and elected representatives who have joined the PSP, asking them to return to the party even though they do not want to.

He said Sattar is a “defeated” man and, in the last resort, has been levelling baseless allegations against others just like he recently did with the PSP. On the occasion, religious TV personality Jameel Rathore also joined the former mayor’s party. Kamal jibed that the MQM-P leader would no doubt say Rathore has also been forced to join the PSP.

On Sunday, Sattar, along with MQM-P MPAs Jamal Ahmed and Nishat Zia Qadri, had held a news conference in which he accused the PSP of threatening his party leaders and lawmakers to switch over.

Kamal claimed that for two years he prayed Sattar would leave his allegedly incendiary activities, but after his recent news conference, the PSP has closed its doors on him because he is a “liar”.

He said people with a character like Sattar’s can never be well-wishers of Mohajirs, adding that the MQM brand has flopped because of the “wrongdoings” of its own people.

Talking about the controversial order of banning Urdu at the Sindh University Jamshoro, he claimed that the Pakistan Peoples Party and the MQM-P have colluded to incite racial violence once again in the province. He urged the Sindh governor to remove the university’s vice-chancellor over the order.

Kamal asked people to join the PSP’s protest demonstration outside the K-Electric’s head office on Friday over excessive load-shedding in the city. PSP President Anis Kaimkhani invited the Sindh chief minister to join the protest.

In Sunday’s news conference, Sattar said he will not join the PSP or any other political party come what may and will remain with his party. “An impression is being created that [the MQM’s electoral symbol] kite is gone and the future belongs to someone else,” he claimed.

“The chief justice of Pakistan and the chief of army staff should take notice of the situation,” he said, adding that he himself will knock on the doors of the Supreme Court and the General Headquarters to apprise them of how the MQM-P is being “forced out of parliamentary politics”.

He claimed that despite having engaged in an uncontroversial political struggle, the MQM-P’s leaders and workers have been receiving death threats to make them switch to the PSP.

He said a narrative is being pushed that people are leaving the MQM-P because of its infighting. “On the contrary, the joining of Shabbir Qaimkhani [in the PSP] has set things straight.”

Sattar said that because of Qaimkhani, the MQM-P’s PIB Colony and Bahadurabad groups entered into an altercation. He said it was evident who planted the seeds of the infighting.

Addressing a news conference later that day, Kamal refuted the allegations that the PSP was forcing the MQM-P’s leaders and workers to switch over. He said it was happening because of the infighting between the PIB and Bahadurabad factions. “We could have said much, enough to damage them to the core, but we opted not to.”

He said that amid their infighting, Sattar would call Anis Kaimkhani often to seek his help in making the Bahadurabad group look weaker. “On the eve of the Senate elections, he asked Kaimkhani to put two votes in Kamran Tessori’s bag to get him elected.”

In March, he said, a day before the Election Commission of Pakistan’s decision, Sattar asked Kaimkhani for a one-on-one meeting at the residence of a friend in District East and said that “if the decision would be against him, then what package the PSP could offer him in return for joining”.

Kamal said Sattar even told him once in a meeting that he would play “bluff” with Mohajirs one more time in the elections in the MQM’s name and the electoral symbol of kite.

He said that all those who were joining the PSP were with doing so with an open mind and heart after debating with him over the party’s manifesto and ideology. He said people in the MQM-P were bent upon forcing Mohajirs into the abyss further.