Haider Abbas Rizvi returns to country for a few hours

Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) leader Haider Abbas Rizvi has left Pakistan again within hours of returning to the country after spending more than two years in Canada.

The 50-year-old boarded a flight to Dubai on Thursday. “He is likely to stay there until he is given a clean chit by the authorities to participate in politics,” a close aide told The News.

Rizvi arrived in Karachi on Wednesday, days after a screenshot of him as an Uber driver in Canada did the rounds on the social media. He was received by the MQM-P Bahadurabad leadership at the airport and brought to the main office.

Shortly afterwards, the MQM-P Bahadurabad convened a news conference late in the night. However, it was called off without any reasonable explanation. The party maintained that they had to do it due to unavoidable circumstances.

Meanwhile, one of the pictures released by MQM-P leader Faisal Subzwari shows Rizvi inspecting Karachi’s delimitation map along with party convener Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui and another leader, Abbas Jafri, at the Bahadurabad office.

Rizvi is considered an influential figure in the party. Besides representing the MQM in the National Assembly as its deputy parliamentary leader, he served as a member of the decision-making coordination committee several times.

He has also been a prominent defender of his party’s politics in the media. During the MQM-P’s infighting that publicly surfaced on February 5, Rizvi tried to intervene, but his mediation was dismissed by Farooq Sattar, the chief of the PIB Colony faction. In a news conference, party leader Ali Raza Abidi had handed Sattar his phone for a live call with Rizvi. Sattar spoke to Rizvi and told him that he was siding with the Bahadurabad group.

The MQM-P Bahadurabad has not issued any public statement on the dramatic arrival and departure of Rizvi. A party leader told The News that Rizvi was advised to leave immediately because of pressure from a segment of the establishment.

Rizvi is booked in cases pertaining to controversial and allegedly provocative speeches of MQM founder Altaf Hussain delivered via telephone from London in July 2015. Unlike his colleagues, Rizvi has not obtained bail in any of the cases and is still wanted by the anti-terrorism courts trying them. He is also mentioned as a suspect in some joint investigation teams’ reports.

Another MQM-P leader said it is likely that the party will move the court to seek protective bail for Rizvi to make legal grounds for him to be a free man in the country.