MQM has no link with Altaf Hussain, says Farooq Sattar

Statement comes after speculations were rife that MQM supremo will keep leading the party from his London secretariat

Muttahida Qaumi Movement senior leader Farooq Sattar has announced that there be a complete disconnect with Altaf Hussain from now on.

"There will be now a complete disconnect with Altaf Hussain. We have no links with Altaf Hussain. It should be clear to all now," said a vocal Sattar during a press conference in Karachi on Saturday.

His statement comes after speculations were made that the MQM supremo will keep leading the party from his London secretariat.

"If even after this announcement TV talk shows keep speculating on this matter, the leaders from MQM Pakistan will not go to any programme," Sattar added.



 

The deputy convener went on to say that the party in Pakistan has completely delinked MQM Pakistan from the London secretariat.

“No one has the right to question our sincerity now,” the furious MQM leader said while talking to the media.

He lamented that the offices of MQM are being raided and demolished despite their act of distancing themselves from the 'former' supremo.

Naming some of the offices of the party, Sattar said these were built on legal land and that they had literacy centres in them.

The MQM leader asked if Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would take notice of the offices being razed.
He went on to say that when the elected Karachi mayor Wasim Akhtar will take oath on August 30, he will at the outset vow to demolish illegal construction. “And the demolition will start with destruction of MQM’s illegal offices.”

Altaf Hussain posters taken down in MQM's Karachi stronghold

 

Sattar demanded that MQM headquarters Nine-Zero be opened and uncalled for detainment of their female workers is stopped once and for all.

A visibly angered Khawaja Izharul Hassan questioned that if women were ever arrested in the country's history and remanded in police custody, referring to the arrest of party workers allegedly responsible for attacking media offices on Monday in Karachi after the party supremo's speech

“I request Maryam Nawaz to recall that your father was also taken into custody but your family’s women were not sent behind the bars. I appeal you to please get our women freed,” Hassan added.

He urged Asefa Bhutto Zardari to take notice of the issue as her mother, Benazir Bhutto, was also jailed extra-judicially.