MQM denies party workers fleeing to Malaysia

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has rejected claims made by some suspected target killers currently in police custody that the party leadership has asked several of its activists to leave Pakistan for Malaysia, where the MQM has reportedly established a parallel set up like its international secretariat in London.
Sources in the law enforcement agencies told Pakistan Today that several suspected target killers arrested in Karachi, including Habibur Rehman, Sultan Ahmed, Murad Akhtar, Jamal Abdul Nasir, Tahir Ali alias Toapchi, Imran alias Lamba, Shahrukh Nafees alias Sharu, Atif Rasheed, Akram alias Aku, Anas Bin Haroon, Syed Abu Irfan alias Urfi and Waseem Ahmed alias Baroodi, had turned out to be active members of the MQM.
The suspected assassins reportedly claimed during investigations that they had been ordered to leave the country in case the circumstances changed in London with regard to the investigations into the murder of MQM leader Dr Imran Farooq and in the expected backdrop of Zulfiqar Mirza approaching the Scotland Yard against MQM chief Altaf Hussain.
Rejecting the claims, MQM Central Information Committee member Nasir Jamal told Pakistan Today, “No one is going anywhere as everything is normal with the party. Party leaders and activists are attending their offices and it is business as usual.”
He said that the MQM did not have any parallel set up in Malaysia or any other part of the world. “The MQM has always supported operation against killers and anti-social elements. The party has always been a victim of media speculations like in the case of the murder of Hakeem Saeed and others. However, these allegations were proven false in the courts,” Jamal said, adding that it was “easy to level allegations and the media is no proper platform for such allegations”.
Meanwhile, sources said the arrested target killers had also claimed that a senior party leader had been assigned the task to help the activists leave the country through sea. More than 300 workers have already reached Malaysia to run the new set up there, the sources said, adding that they have reached Malaysia from various countries, including Singapore, South Africa, Belgium, Australia and Dubai.
The sources said that Zulfiqar Mirza had recently sent some of his trusted associates to Malaysia and they had been successful in obtaining credible evidence into the setting up of a MQM secretariat in the country.