Want to revive the MQM of 1986: Sattar

HYDERABAD: Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) former leader Farooq Sattar has said he will challenge his removal from the party's leadership and cancellation of his membership in court. Talking to the media in Hyderabad on Monday, Sattar also announced that he would set up a political forum to revive the MQM of 1986.

"The forum will be named Muttahida Qaumi Council or Muttahida Qaumi Syndicate and it will consist of politicians who were part of MQM in 1986." He claimed that when he raised the slogan of accountability within the party, he was removed from the leadership and his membership was cancelled. "I want to take MQM back to 1986 and to restore the enthusiasm of those early years."



He said that MQM-P's leaders including himself, Amir Khan and Kunwar Naveed Jamil should be held accountable for whatever properties and assets they have accumulated since 1986. "The feudal lords and qabza mafia [land grabbing mafia] have enlisted Rabita Committee members of MQM-P to their side," he alleged.

Sattar said MQM-P's incumbent leaders cannot end his 39-year-long association with the party's workers, reminding that he won the largest vote in the intra-party elections. He termed the defamation suit filed against him by Jamil a joke.



Sharif conviction

Commenting on former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif's, conviction in Al Azizia reference, Sattar said it is not good for the country's image that its former PM or president are charged with amassing assets beyond declared resources. He said the laws of the National Accountability Bureau should be made transparent.

He warned the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) government that it will be hoisted by its own petard if the current process of accountability continued. 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 25^th, 2018.