Establishment trying to eliminate me: Altaf

MQM chief says hidden powers are plotting to assassinate him and eliminate his movement.

KARACHI:

The Chief of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has asked his followers “to prepare themselves as powerful quarters have started moving against me. They want to remove Altaf Hussain from your fold”.

In an online message addressed to “comrades of the movement”, he accused “international power brokers of using powerful state institutions like the army, ISI and other government agencies to suppress the philosophy of Altaf Hussain” and said that after having failed to do so despite “hatching conspiracies, unleashing a reign of brutality and terror and killing thousands of comrades, the Pakistani establishment, aided by other powerful nations, is trying to eliminate Altaf Hussain”.

Terming the murder of Dr Imran Farooq part of the emerging pattern, the MQM chief cited various news analyses aired and published in a wide segment of national and international media, including a BBC talkshow in which a Rabita Committee member, Muhammad Anwar, was interviewed, and said that “all intelligent individuals can guess who is really being targeted and what is being shielded by the murder”.

Lashing out against “generals, tribal chieftains, feudal lords and rabble leaders who became financiers after joining government”, he said that not only the country’s elite “but various powerful countries are exploiting people, using the outmoded system in vogue in the country”.

He urged his followers to spread his message, forge unity and abandon all self interest to promote the movement’s mission, cause and ideology” to the best of their abilities, adding that he “wish all comrades to remain steadfast.”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 27th, 2010.