New LG system: Altaf warns MQM workers against violent blowback

Altaf Hussain says those raising a hue and cry over new LG system are on payrolls of hidden hands.

LONDON: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain on Friday warned his party's office bearers and workers against a potentially violent blowback to the recently promulgated local governance system in Sindh, a press release said.

Hussain, while talking at the emergency joint coordination committee meeting in London and Pakistan said that some forces and elements working on the payroll of hidden hands are busy disturbing the peace of Sindh

“The elements raising a hue and cry on the newly promulgated local government system,” he said referring to the political parties who had protested the move on Friday. “They [the parties] were, in fact, paid workers of the hidden hands, and they are busy in weaving conspiracies to spoil the atmosphere of peace, tranquility and brotherhood.”

The MQM chief, whose party had enjoyed four years at the helm of Karachi under the local government system instituted by General Pervez Musharaf in 2001, said that local government systems were working in all the civilized countries of the world, opposing this system though betrayed a feudal mentality which was a major hindrance in the dispensation of justice to the poor.

He said that the local bodies system is the need of the hour and reflects the aspirations of the people of Pakistan.

Referring to the strike called by the Sindhi nationalists for September 13, Hussain said that his party could not be cowed down in the past by such threats nor would they be intimidated in future as well.

Hussain asked the MQM workers, office-bearers, workers and sympathizers to remain mentally and physically alert unless “conspirators” tried to create a law and order situation.

Referring to the ANP, he said that “every child in Pakistan knows that the ANP and its leaders are responsible for the bloodshed of its own people in order to please their foreign masters in return for monetary benefits. These elements and their party, the ANP, are advocating the system that was introduced in the subcontinent by the British in order to prolong their grip on power.”