Altaf raises questions about safety of nuclear assets

MQM chief says the Taliban, Pakistan’s own creation, have now turned hostile.

KARACHI:

Terrorists engaged Pakistani forces in a 16-hour-long battle, raising several questions regarding their level of preparedness and efficiency and they still claim that the country’s nuclear assets are safe, chief of the Muttahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM) Altaf Hussein said on Friday.

He said that a “couple of jets will land, lift (our) nuclear assets and leave unscathed,” adding that he did not care who was mad at him for speaking his mind. “These are bitter facts that I am speaking about now. I predict that it may result in the authorities banning my telephonic addresses.”

Addressing a convention of MQM’s workers and sympathisers over telephone all over the country, he accused the country’s political leadership of having failed in fulfilling their responsibility of guiding the nation out of turmoil and said that some sections of the army and the Inter-Services Intelligence had been “afflicted by cancer, necessitating their surgical removal without affecting the entire body”.

The Taliban, he said, were Pakistan’s own creation, who had now turned hostile towards the country.

Accusing the military and political leadership of “duping the people for the past 63 years and concealing facts”, Altaf Hussain said it was imperative for “honest middle-class leadership to take charge, returning the country back on the path of progress and prosperity and reclaiming the lost respect and integrity”.

Accusing all political leaders, including the president, prime minister and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif of “keeping their assets abroad and having residences in foreign countries”, the MQM chief said that the nation should now “rethink its defence strategy and decide how best to defend its sovereignty in future”, adding that the country spent “about 80 per cent of its budget” on military expenses.

Urging the rulers to reject all forms of foreign aid, he said that they should steer the country away from “sheer beggary”.

He said that he did not “care who was mad at him for his words”.

Rejecting the assertions that the war on terror was “just a US affair”, he said that if this was so, why were Pakistanis falling victims to vicious terrorist attacks?

He said that it was unjustified and insane to hold any single individual responsible for the Abbottabad incursion by US forces in which al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed.

Meanwhile, former MQM-H leader Amir Khan also addressed the convention.

He publicly apologised for his “wrongdoings of the past” and said he would “live and die from now onwards as a dedicated MQM worker”.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 28^th, 2011.