MQM-P holds march to announce Muhajir Culture Day in February

Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan’s senior leader Haider Abbas Rizvi reappeared on the city's political scene as he participated in ‘Muhajir Day peace walk’ on Thursday.

The rally, held under the banner of Nojawanan-e-Karachi, a youth group, started from Karimabad and culminated at the Mazar-e-Quaid. MQM-P leaders and workers showed up in a large number, while Dr Farooq Sattar, the head of his own faction of the MQM-P, and Dr Saleem Haider, a leader of the Muhajir Ittehad Tehreek, also participated in the rally.

However, the Pak Sarzameen Party and the Haqiqi faction of the MQM did not participate in the walk, confirmed the rally organisers. Dr Amir Liaquat Hussain, a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s lawmaker in the Centre and a former leader of the MQM, set up a camp in support of the rally but did not participate in it.

Ahsan Qureshi, the rally’s organiser, said the main objective of holding the rally was to spread awareness about the upcoming “celebration of the Muhajir Culture Day that will be marked every year on the third Sunday of February” from now.

“Marking ‘Muhajir Cultural Day’ has mutually been decided by the MQM-P leaders, elders, intellectuals, students and professionals from the community,” Qureshi told The News. It is pertinent to mention here that various ethnic political parties, and cultural and community groups in Karachi regularly mark Sindhi, Pashtuns and Baloch cultural days every year.

Rivi’s homecoming

Rizvi, an MQM-P central leader and a former MNA, who returned to Pakistan last month after two years, also took part in the rally – a move that has been considered his re-entry into the city’s politics. Rizvi, who had been living in Canada and Dubai for the past couple of years, came to Pakistan in June 2018, but he had hastily left the country for Dubai after a few hours.

Speaking to the rally’s participants, the political figures maintained that their forefathers had to give up their regional languages for the sake of the land of Pakistan. “They left their belongings and crossed the border for the sake of Islam and Pakistan,” said a speaker, adding that the Muhajir community was proud of its history and identity. MQM-P leader Muhamamd Hussain was also present on the occasion.