PML-Q does not support commissionerate system: Shujaat

Sattar says the MQM and the PML-Q continued to share a cordial relationship despite sitting on opposite sides in NA.

KARACHI: Pakistan Muslim League-Q opposed the commissionerate system revived by the Sindh government in recent days, its leader Chaudhry Shujat Hussain said at the joint press conference following a meeting with the MQM leadership at nine-zero in Karachi late on Tuesday.

Addressing the joint press conference, Farooq Sattar said that the two parties discussed what role the MQM could play while being in the opposition.

Hussain said that he was not President Zardari's messenger, and had come to nine-zero to discuss the city’s situation. He made it clear that his party did not support aggression against anyone. The PML-Q would stand by the MQM and in this regard, and it would not care whether the PML-Q or the MQM sat in the treasury or the opposition benches.

He said that leaders of all political parties in the country should visit Karachi and find concrete solution to the tug of war and lawlessness in an amicable manner. He said that the Karachi’s issue was quite sensitive and it ought not to be resolved only through lip service.

Hussain said that PML-Q would play its role in case there is an operation against the MQM or the people of the city.

Hussain was interrupted during his speech by a woman who asked where her son was. Chaudhry Shujaat, had served as the interior minister during both Nawaz Sharif's governments in which targeted operations against the MQM were carried out in Karachi. During the operations many young men had disappeared from Karachi.

The MQM leadership had shown clips of violence in Karachi to the PML-Q chief, whose party had recently decided to switch sides from being in the opposition to joint the government. After watching the clips, Hussain said that he had been saddened to witness the pain of the affected people of Qasba Colony and Gulfam Abad. He said that he, and his party would work for a practical approach to redress the affected people.

Hussain said that he could feel the pain of the affected people because he had also lost his father in an act of terrorism.

Earlier, MQM coordination committee deputy convener Dr Farooq Sattar in his speech said that in past when Chaudhary Shujat Hussain used to come to nine-zero, and despite the role reversals in the national assembly, the two parties had always enjoyed a cordial relationship based on mutual trust.

Sattar said that Hussain's visit to nine-zero was to dissipate the impression that the law and order situation in the city was created after the MQM had parted ways from the government.

He said that government’s actions, which are unconstitutional and are void of a moral basis have created despondency in the constituencies of the MQM.

He said that the MQM was being pushed against the wall deliberately.

Meanwhile, during talks between the PML-Q and the MQM coordination committee, it was learnt that the MQM had clearly stated its standpoint that it would not join the government at any cost.

He further said that the MQM could have left the government much earlier and many such opportunities had presented themselves before, however the MQM decided to hold out. He said that they took their decision after extreme public pressure.

Chaudhry Shujaat led a three member delegation into the meeting room with the MQM which included Chaudhary Shujaat, Haleem Adil Shaikh, and Chaudhry Wajahat Hussain.

Demand for a new province

Waseem Aftab, a member of the coordination committee said that sections of public in Karachi were demanding the city be made a separate province. He said that public sentiment reflected a sense of abandonment by the ruling government and the state and they felt as if they were not “sons of the soil”.

Mustafa Kamal , the former mayor of Karachi and a member of the Rabita committee in a statement said that the government was not serious to fix the situation in the city. He further said that the government was trying to fester differences between MQM and the general public.

Kamal alleged that the government had authorized certain elements to target the MQM, even kill with impunity.

People from Qasba and other areas of Karachi had gathered outside nine-zero. They bore placards protesting the violence that had been waged against them, and abandonment by the government and other ruling parties.

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