Making amends: MQM-H leaders admit their guilt, vow to stay loyal to Altaf

There were forces that duped us and led us astray from the right path: Feroze Haider.

KARACHI:

Leaders of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi (MQM-H) have also wrapped up their party after their key leader Amir Khan returned to the fold of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) after begging forgiveness last week.

The MQM-H was a faction that broke away from the MQM in 1992, before the military operation in Karachi. Amir Khan was released from jail recently and made amends with MQM chief Altaf Hussain. On Saturday, key leaders and decision-making members of the MQM-H Amir faction announced their return at a press conference at the MQM’s Khursheed Begum Secretariat. Amir Khan accompanied them. However, no member of the MQM Rabita Committee was present.

Former spokesman of the MQM-H Amir faction, Feroze Haider, along with former MQM-H MPAs Iqbal Qureshi and Younus Khan and key leaders Asif Shaharyar, Fayyaz Qadri and Abid Jaffery from Hyderabad spoke.

“The cause of the tehreek [MQM movement] was bulldozed after we parted ways with Altaf Hussein, which was a fatal mistake,” said Haider. “There were forces that duped us and led us astray from the right path.” Neither Amir Khan nor these men actually specified what they meant by the “cause”.

Haider said that despite their “wrongdoings and mistakes” that caused Altaf Hussein the loss of his brother and nephew and around “16,000” diehard activists, Hussain has forgiven them, opened the doors of his party to them and reinstated them as workers. He was referring to the people at the press conference and not the major bulk of MQM-H workers.

These people had only one choice left — to beg forgiveness from Altaf Hussein and relatives and members of the aggrieved families of those killed. It would be, however, premature to say how the remaining workers in the lower ranks would find a way back into the MQM given the bloodshed over two decades.

Neither Amir Khan nor these leaders cast light on this aspect of the ‘reconciliation’. Sources said perhaps a third round is in the offing once the assessment and sifting through of the workers is completed on the basis of their ‘sins’. It is likely that pardons will be given to only those who did not commit “heinous” crimes against the MQM, sources said. The most significant part of the picture is, however, the return of the main leaders. The workers will follow.

The press conference was largely attended by the media.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2011.