APMSO’s 33rd founding day marked in London

LONDON: The 33rd founding day of All Pakistan Muttahida Students’ Organization (APMSO) was marked here in a colourful ceremony of speeches, food and music.
Hundreds of Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) activists with their families from all over the UK attended the ceremony at the Brent Town Hall, which lasted for over 6 hours. Pakistan’s High Commissioner to the UK Wajid Shamusl Hasan attended the ceremony and congratulated the party, which started as a student group in Karachi campuses, for playing a key role in Pakistan’s national politics.
Mayor of Brent Aslam Chaudhry said in his speech that it was a credit to handful students who formed the party 33 years ago that it was today working for “common good of all Pakistan”. A large number of Kashmiri community members also attended the event. “Pakistan has been through horrendous times but we are all grateful that it’s firmly on democratic path today and MQM has a vital role in the democratic process,” said the Mayor.
MQM Rabita Committee members Tariq Mir, Mustafa Azizabadi, Syed Shoaib Bukhari, Saleem Shahzad, Muhammad Anwar, Anees Advocate, Tariq Javed, and Muhammad Ashfaq greeted the participants. In their speeches the MQM leaders recalled that the APMSO had been founded on June 11 1978, at University of Karachi, at a time of great strife for the local communities who were facing exploitation.
They recalled how the party founder personally suffered for the great cause and lost hundreds of comrades in the struggle. They said every effort was made to divide and crush the party by the powerful alliance of feudals, landlords and the forces of status quo in the establishment but the MQM foiled every tactic employed against it as a result of the sacrifices rendered by its leaders. They mentioned the names of Azeem Tariq and Dr Imran Farooq, who was murdered in London last year, and paid tribute to their services for the party.
The speakers told the participants that MQM was the only party that stood for the rights of the majority downtrodden in Pakistan and exhorted on the followers of the party to take the MQM’s philosophy to others to bring about the revolution that Pakistan so badly needs.
MQM’s Kashmiri leaders Mansha Khan and Mohammad Ayoun Choudhary appealed to the Kashmiri community in Britain to vote for the MQM candidates on 26 June elections in Azad Kashmir. They said the MQM offers real alternatives to the problems of Kashmir, including the resolution of the Kashmir dispute according to the wishes of the Kashmiri people.