MQM’s all too familiar pressure tactics
While the government, the opposition parties and the military establishment are on one page on terrorism and extremism being the most crucial issue that needs to be settled urgently, Altaf Hussain has chosen to strike a discordant note. The MQM chief would like the nation to leave everything else to convene an APC on the creation of new provinces. Interestingly only a few days back the MQM was demanding the deployment of army in Karachi to put an end to terrorist killings. The sudden dropping of a red herring would confound many.
There is a general consensus in the country that the ailing economy, power shortages and militancy and extremism are the three issues that need to be addressed at the earliest. There is also an agreement that ending militancy enjoys priority, as there is no hope of improving the economy in the absence of peace in the country. For this an APC was held on Monday which gave a go ahead to the government to hold talks with the militants. In view of the unending killings in Karachi the prime minister spent two days in the metropolis last week conferring with the Sindh CM, governor, political parties, DG Rangers, IGP and chiefs of intelligence agencies. He is now again proceeding to the city. An APC on Balochistan is next on the agenda as people in the province continue to suffer on account of attacks by communal terrorists and Baloch separatists as well as forced disappearances attributed to the security agencies. The Balochistan chief minister has meanwhile been given a go ahead to initiate talks with militants of all hues operating in the province. In case the talks fail, the government will have to pursue other means to bring peace to the country.
There is a perception that the MQM is seeking an APC on new provinces in pursuit of certain ends. While demanding action against all involved in killings and extortion irrespective of political affiliations, it has reacted strongly to the arrest of its former legislator Nadeem Hashmi, who is accused of killing two policemen. One hopes that those who charged the former legislator did that on the basis of strong evidence. One had also hoped that the MQM would take the issue to the court. Instead its leadership decided to issue strong statements which led to a shutter down cum wheel-jam strike in Karachi followed by the all too familiar incidents of violence and arson. Denied accommodation in both the federal and the Sindh cabinet ‘to act as a bridge’, as Farooq Sattar had put it, the MQM now wants to use pressure tactics. Judging from Babar Ghouri’s refusal to commit himself on the issue on a TV channel, the demand for APC on new provinces is likely to be followed by demand for a new province to be carved out from Sindh which would divide those living in the province rather than unite them.
