Under a ‘deal’: MQM-P hopes to get back its ‘legal’ offices

Party leaders say the newly-elected PM has promised to help the party get back Nine-Zero

KARACHI: In return for its support to the PML-N during the parliamentary vote for the election of new prime minister, the MQM- Pakistan is likely to get back its ‘legal’ offices which were sealed after the launch of a crackdown against the party in August last year.

The MQM-P voted for Shahid Khaqan Abbasi who was nominated as the ruling party’s choice for premiership in the wake of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification by the apex court. The support apparently helped the PML-N exhibit a power show in the National Assembly at a crucial time.

The MQM-P had fielded its women wing in-charge Kishwer Zehra as a prime ministerial candidate. However, she withdrew hours before the voting as her party reportedly struck a deal with the PML-N on a special development package for Karachi of over Rs20 billion and reopening of offices.



Sindh Governor Muhammad Zubair had played role of a mediator during the negotiation process and visited the MQM-P’s ‘makeshift’ headquarters – a move that had drawn criticism from some political parties which had regarded it as not in keeping with the governor’s constitutional apolitical status.

“We were assured that our offices which were built legally on purchased or rented places will be handed back to us so that we could continue our political work smoothly,” Aminul Haq, MQM-P’s Coordination Committee member and spokesperson, told The Express Tribune.

“The plan has, however, yet to be implemented,” he added.

The party had a strong network of 26 sector offices and over 200 unit offices that helped it maintain its iron grip over Karachi for nearly three decades.

This grip started to loosen by the end of 2013 after paramilitary Ranger launched a series of crackdowns against the party as part of its surgical operation in the metropolis.

However, the major blow came to the party on August 22, 2016 when the MQM’s exiled founder Altaf Hussain made an anti-state speech outside Karachi Press Club.

Haq, meanwhile, appeared hopeful that the PML-N-led federal government would fulfill its promise, adding that currently the party was preparing a list of its offices sealed by the authorities during the crackdown after August 22. “The list will soon be shared with the federal government through governor.”



Apparently, the party will get few places back as out of the 26 sectors offices and over 200 unit offices, most were established illegally on encroached lands, amenity plots and spaces for parks.

However, the party is hoping to get back keys of its headquarters – Nine Zero and other adjacent buildings. Nine Zero is sealed and is virtually guarded by the paramilitary Rangers which comes under the interior ministry.

“PM Abbasi had pledged that as soon as he took office, he would start working with the interior ministry to get status of Nine Zero cleared and hand it back to the MQM-P,” a senior MQM-P leader said.

“However, it is not just the interior ministry which needs to be taken on board but also certain other powerful quarters,” he said, in an apparent reference to the military establishment.