Sindh politics: MQM to hold referendum on joining PPP govt

Altaf gives office bearers a choice following Rehman Malik’s invitation to join the Sindh government.

KARACHI:

Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain directed his party’s coordination committee to hold a nationwide referendum in three days to decide if the party should join the Sindh government or instead sit on the opposition benches in the provincial assembly.

The MQM chief, while addressing party workers through a telephonic address in the Lal Qila Ground, Azizabad gave them an open choice. Party leaders responded that they were in favour of sitting the opposition benches in the Sindh Assembly.

MQM’s call for referendum comes a day after a Pakistan People’s Party delegation, led by Rehman Malik, visited the MQM headquarters Nine-Zero and formally invited the MQM to join the Sindh government.

Despite the invitation, the party said it would take a final decision after consulting party workers.



Balochistan attacks

In his telephonic address, Altaf expressed solidarity with the bereaved families of the victims of the Quetta attack and said that terrorists had targeted students who were completely innocent. He questioned why a single terrorist was not killed during the operation at the Bolan Medical Complex in Quetta.

“I wonder how terrorists attacked a bus carrying female students of the medical complex even after millions of rupees were spent on Army, FC and all other agencies in the province.”

Moreover, he questioned why terrorists from militant outfits like the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the Tehreek-e-Taliban were roaming freely despite taking responsibility for different attacks across the country.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif should call upon the army, the Frontier Corps and all other agencies to ask why terrorists of militant outfits are not arrested.

Karachi killings

Altaf said he would file petitions to the United Nations and the Chief Justice of Pakistan against the targeted killings of party workers in Karachi. “We will soon approach the Supreme Court along with the complete details of the martyrs and missing party workers to seek justice.”

Talking about his exile in London, Hussain said that he was not willingly living life in exile, adding that his companions forcefully sent him out of the country after a number of attacks, including suicide attacks, on him. “The first ever suicide attack in the country’s history targeted me.”

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18^th, 2013.