Pakistan’s Ham-handed Attempt at Cornering the MQM

Pakistani authorities seek to destroy the MQM’s political influence among party’s followers, writes Rana Banerji.

Owen Bennett Jones’ story in the BBC (June 24) on the Mohajir Quami Movement (MQM)’s alleged India links is another ruse by the Pakistani ‘deep state’ to supress a strong political party and erode its influence from the Greater Karachi Metropolitan area.

Jones quoted an ‘unnamed Pakistani official’ to suggest that MQM party men in UK had admitted, ‘in formally recorded conversations’ to British authorities, to have received funds from India.

India’s External Affairs Ministry has already dismissed this report as completely baseless. So has MQM’s senior functionary at their London office, Mohammad Anwar, describing this as ‘a story planted by the Pakistan Army to defame us’.

Relentless Siege

Not since the Pakistani establishment’s crackdown in mid-1995 has the MQM been subjected to such a relentless siege by Pakistan Rangers. The current operations in Karachi began in August last year. On March 11, 2015, the ‘holiest of holy’ ‘Nine Zero’, MQM headquarters and home of Altaf Hussain at 90, Azizabad, was raided by Pakistan Rangers. Several MQM(A) party workers were arrested, arms and ammunition allegedly stolen from NATO containers seized and five criminals wanted in the January 2011 murder of journalist Wali Khan Babbar, including Faisal Mota, Farhan Shabbir were apprehended.

Another party worker, Sualat Mirza, was recently awarded death penalty for killing Karachi Electric Supply official, Shahid Hamid in May 1999. The Pak Rangers report on the September 2012 Baldia factory fire, in which over 200 workers died, brought out practices of torture and extortion by MQM, badly damaging its image.

The Pak Rangers has been trying to cleanse Karachi of endemic violence, stemming from a peculiar mix of drug mafia-related crimes, extortions, kidnappings, sectarian reprisals and even ‘gang-warfare’, which have plagued the city over the last two decades, causing a systematic outward flow of capital and investments from what used to be Pakistan’s economic hub.

MQM’s Dilemma

The MQM(A)’s dilemma has been particularly acute, as this ebb in its fortunes coincided embarrassingly with the fall from grace of Altaf Hussain himself, with the discovery of unaccounted for cash in his North London house in December 2012, which caused suspicion of money laundering. Altaf and some of his associates were detained for questioning. Investigations continue in this case, which will have to come up before the Crown Prosecution.

In a more serious case, Altaf came to adverse notice of the Metroploitan Police for possible involvement in the killing, in 2010, of Imran Farooq, MQM’s virtual ‘Number Two’, outside his East London home. Altaf’s nephew, Iftikhar was detained by the authorities in June 2013 but released in October the same year. Two other suspects, Mohsin Ali Syed and Mohammad Kashif Khan Kamran fled to Pakistan and were taken into custody by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). They have not been handed back to the British authorities so far despite pending requests.

Recently, the Pakistani authorities engaged in the drama of ‘re-arresting’
these two absconders from the Chaman border, as they were ostensibly coming in from Afghanistan. They also announced that they were now allowing British police to come in for interrogation.

Oft-repeated Canard

Owen Bennett Jones has been tracking both these stories. He writes regular columns in the Pakistani media. The ploy obviously was to use his connections in the BBC to lend greater credibility to this oft-repeated canard of MQM’s ‘India hand’ to denigrate the party.

In what is another give-away of ISI tactics, Jones interviews Imran Khan, Tehrik-e-Insaaf Pakistan (PTI) leader for his June 24 story. Imran Khan harbours a visceral dislike of Altaf Hussain, a sentiment reciprocated by the latter.

Though it is well known that MQM has dominated the Karachi political scene since 1988, Imran correctly observed in the Jones’ interview that in recent months MQM(A) has lost ground politically. In the 2013 elections, MQM was able to win 17 of 20 Karachi seats in the National Assembly and 34 of 42 Provincial Assembly seats from Sindh but its vote share came down by
4%. The PTI replaced the Awami National Party (ANP) as the bigger Pashtun dominated party in new settlements in SITE Industrial area and Sohrab Goth of Karachi. However, in the recent NA-206 by-election (April 2015), MQM again bested PTI by a comfortable margin.

Having failed to weaken MQM’s political influence in the city, the army, ISI and Pak Rangers now want to damage its hold over its loyal masses so that its capacity to hold the state to ransom whenever it wants can be defanged for good, and Karachi can slowly limp back to a tolerable state of order.

(The writer is a former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat)