MQM-Pakistan to hold its first public gathering

Party plans to organise rally outside Mazar-e-Quaid on Dec 25

KARACHI: In a bid to show that the party can run without its founding father, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM) has announced its first public gathering since the split with the London-based leadership.

Addressing a general workers meeting in Baldia on Wednesday night, MQM-Pakistan chief Farooq Sattar said that the party will show its power by organising a ‘huge and historic’ public gathering outside the mausoleum of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah on December 25, his birthday.

London group 'expels' four senior leaders from MQM-Pakistan

This will be the inaugural show for the MQM which has parted ways with its founder and senior leadership in London following the August 22 incidents in which slogans against the country were chanted and a news channel was attacked on alleged instigation of Altaf. Referring to the split in the MQM, Sattar said that they decided to safeguard Pakistan, keeping in view that it were their forefathers who created this country.



He said that they will force the federal government to conduct a population census, adding that if the count is ‘fair’, the number of national assembly seats in Karachi will increase from 20 to 43 and the provincial assembly ones will surge to 75 from 43.



Referring to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, he said that the project will only be accomplished when the corridor between Karachi and Balochistan is completed.

Other MQM leaders including Amir Khan, Khawaja Izharul Hasan, Salman Mujahid and Khawaja Suhail Mansoor also spoke at the press conference.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 28^th, 2016.