The MQM chief should not fear the law taking its course
Something serious is up the world of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), when its founder chief Altaf Hussain resigns and then withdraws the resignation tendered to himself. Most of the furore has been over the murder of Dr Imran Farooq, one of the founders of the MQM, in London on September 16, 2010. Had the murder been in Pakistan, it would have gone unnoticed as the dozens of murders do every day in Karachi, but this one fell to London’s Metropolitan Police. The pressure on the MQM from within and abroad was spiked up after general elections in Pakistan in May. As a result, the MQM chief was alleged to have hurled threats at various Pakistani politicians and media officials and a reported thousands of phone calls were made to the Metropolitan Police complaining about remarks made by the Pakistani citizen being “sheltered in the UK.”
Altaf may have had good reason to have taken refuge in the UK after the operations against the MQM in 1993, confident that the party’s activities in Pakistan would not have a bearing on both his safety and his ability to control the fierce party workers from afar. But then it was only going to be so if the spate of violence on the streets of Karachi did not come home to London. Dr Farooq’s murder transgressed the boundary and the MQM chief himself began to fall under the purview. Last week when the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command Unit searched Hussain’s North West London house for 55 hours and confiscated a number of important documents. The British police was investigating evidence that Dr Farooq’s murder was by members of his own party as he was known to be in discussions to break away and start his own political career.
Speaking to the MQM supporters at ‘90’ on telephone, Altaf said he was voluntarily relinquishing party leadership, a decision that shocked even those that do not support the party. He said the raid had questioned his “moral authority as a leader of millions” and he had to “voluntarily step down.” He said he would fight his case himself if a court of law took up the matter. However, those who thought the move was a gimmick got more credence when the MQM chief took back his resignation on Sunday morning, stating, ““I may not be the chief in the eyes of Britain, but I am the chief in the eyes of party workers.” For the raid in England, he appeared to blame the Pakistani establishment and himself demanded justice for Dr Farooq. The good thing is that Altaf Hussain appears to have realized the seriousness of the murder and has stated he is willing to defend himself in court. Hussain definitely knows how to respond when put in a corner and has shown that by resigning and taking back the resignation on the insistence of the MQM rank and file, his support in Pakistan is still intact. The question, however, is: if his party is not involved in Dr Farooq’s murder, why should the MQM chief fear the law taking its course?
