Workers’ convention: Altaf has a history of inflammatory remarks

Amir Khan says London leadership was creating hurdles

KARACHI: Altaf Hussain’s August 22 speech was not the first inflammatory address made by the MQM founder, senior deputy convener of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-Pakistan) Amir Khan said on Saturday. Altaf had made similar declarations before as well, he claimed.

Amir, who bolstered MQM-Pakistan’s stance over disavowal of the party founder for making controversial remarks, lashed out at the leadership in London for creating hurdles in their way.

Speaking to a general workers’ convention in New Karachi, he said that Dr Sattar’s August 23 step had saved the party from being banned because anti-Pakistan slogans and seditious remarks were unacceptable. “We can’t tolerate such remarks,” he maintained.

Criticising Wasay Jalil, Mustafa Azizabadi, Muhammad Anwar and others leading MQM’s London faction, he said that they were unable to withstand hard times. He said that Jalil had fled abroad a day after the MQM headquarters was raided by Rangers last year. “(Jalil) is a social media king though,” he remarked.

Accusing Azizabadi of reaping financial gains for himself and his family, he said that he was the biggest ‘courtier’ of all times. “He owns tens of houses in a row in Landhi while his brother is an employee at Karachi Metropolitan Corporation.”

He said that Anwar through his brother, Chunnu Mamoo, a fugitive wanted by the authorities in land grabbing and terror financing cases, acquired millions from ‘china-cutting’ schemes in the city. “And they call us [MQM-Pakistan] traitors.”

Abuse of power admitted

Admitting that the party misused the power it enjoyed during the Musharraf regime, he said: “People feared us because of this abuse of power, people feared going to the party’s sector and unit offices as if they were going to police stations.”

He said that party workers who visited MQM-Pakistan’s programmes to further the pro-London agenda may continue to do so. “We do not need to answer them.”

He also urged his colleagues and party activists to mend their ways and focus on making Karachi a better place to live.

He said that party workers who did not agree with MQM-Pakistan’s policies should stop following them. “We are not like Pak Sarzameen Party which forces people to join it,” he said, adding that soon the chapters of PSP and Haqiqi would be shut down.

According to him, some people wanted to create a clash on December 9 – the day the party commemorates as Youm-e-Shuhada. “We will not visit Yadgar-e-Shuhada if the authorities do not allow us.”

Dr Sattar agreed with his assertions and said that elements who wanted to split MQM should realise that it “was and will always remain a single unit”.

Reminding the audience that the authorities had resorted to similar tactics in 1992, but they failed to execute their plan.

MQM-Pakistan, he said, would secure “more National Assembly and Sindh Assembly seats in the next general elections”.

Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly Khawaja Izharul Hasan also spoke on the occasion.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2016.