Conspiracies can’t eliminate us: MQM

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) said on Tuesday that the “ongoing character assassination campaign” against the party and its leadership was a conspiracy to push Muhajirs and their party to the wall, and the MQM could not be eliminated by such conspiracies, instead the country and its people would suffer a loss.
“This is not 1992, it is 2011. We are silent for the sake of the country and it should not be misconstrued as weakness. Attempts are being made to push us back towards the Muhajir Qaumi Movement but we will remain the Muttahida Qaumi Movement,” MQM central leader Mustafa Kamal said at a press conference at MQM Headquarters 90 late on Tuesday evening. In a detailed press conference by the MQM, the party’s leaders denied all allegations leveled against them by former Sindh home minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza and said Mirza should go to court if he had any proof of his allegations.
PAHARI: Kamal also rejected the Joint Investigation Team’s report against Ajmal Pahari, whom it had accused of murdering 100 people in Karachi and getting training from India. The MQM leader said that same allegations were also made against Pahari during the 1992 operation in Karachi. He said everybody was aware of the country’s interrogation system and its credibility, under which suspects would even confess involvement in the 9/11 attacks within two hours of interrogation by the Pakistani police. He said MQM’s workers had taken refuge in various countries during the 1992 operation, and Pahari had fled to India to save his life, but he could not be accused of getting terrorism training there. Kamal said no one could expel anyone from Karachi, and the MQM did not want to do that either because people belonging to different communities were in the party’s folds. He said the MQM could not practise aggression against any other community, and if the party had wanted to do so, it could have during 2002 to 2008 when it was completely in power.
He said that the allegations being leveled against the party and its leadership were not new as similar allegations were also made during the 1992 operation, including such allegations as conspiring to break the country and create “Jinnah Pur”. The state machinery itself had later denied those allegations on TV, he added. “The country cannot afford such adventurism at this time,” he warned.
CHARACTER ASSASSINATION CAMPAIGN: Kamal said Dr Mirza’s claims and allegations were a farce and absolute lies. He also complained that the media, especially TV anchors were promoting a character assassination campaign against the MQM and its leadership. He said further that attributing the demand of disbanding the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to the MQM leadership was an attempt to create misunderstandings between the party and the army. The fact, he said, was that it was only the MQM that had openly opposed bringing the ISI under the Interior Ministry and the Kerry-Lugar Bill, despite remaining in the government.