KARACHI - Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) Deputy Convener Nadeem Nusrat yesterday refuted all the allegations levelled against the party and called on Chief of Army Staff Raheel Sharif to meet his party`s delegations.
This was stated by Nadeem Nusrat, addressing a press conference through a video link from London along with Mustafa Azizabadi, Dr Saleem Danish and others at Khursheed Begum Secretariat. It is pertinent to mention here the MQM London-based leadership had come up with an explanation in a bid to counter the demand made by Mustafa Kamal to ban MQM. During the press briefing, the MQM leader not only rejected all the allegations but also accused the newly formed group of using the support of invisible force for creating pressure on the workers and leaders to change their loyalties.
The decision-making body head of MQM, Nadeem Nusrat, hinting at former Karachi Mayor Mustafa Kamal, said those thrown out of the party over their involvement in china cutting, corruption and other illegal activities were levelling baseless allegations against Muttahida.
He said MQM has the mandate of millions of people of urban Sindh, who have manifested their unending support to it despite negative propaganda. This portrays a resolve of millions of people that no malicious agenda or any propaganda could succeed in eliminating MQM. The leaders, parliamentarians and workers of MQM were being chased wildly by a handful of elements in forces that were bent upon crushing the MQM by misusing their powers and offices of which Chief of Army Staffs General Raheel Sharif should take notice and play his role for stopping this unlawful activity, he added.
“Those who have joined dissenters led by Mustafa Kamal and others were also threatened of dire consequences and the MQM is keeping full record of calls from secret or open numbers. The MQM leadership is ready to produce these records of proofs to COAS Raheel Sharif,” said Nusrat, asking the army chief to meet his party`s delegation at any appropriate time.
“MQM chief Altaf Hussain recently took out a mammoth rally in support of the armed forces of Pakistan, but he has been sidelined under a plot and is being called as an agent of the enemy country’s spy agency, RAW,” he deplored.
On the contrary, the people in millions continued to support the MQM and adhere to the ideology of the MQM Chief, which resulted in sweeping general and by-elections. It is a clear rejection of the elements that are maligning the MQM and its founder for the wrongs they never committed, argued the Muttahida leader. He said a section of the national media is bent upon holding MQM and its chief responsible for all the unrest. However, this particular agenda is tantamount to negating the genuine record of genocide of Mohajirs by anti-Mohajir elements.
Nusrat said that long before emergence of MQM and Altaf Hussain as sole and undisputed leader of Mohajirs, they were subjected to lethal ethnic violence in which thousands were slaughtered on streets. The massacre of Mohajirs in Aligarh and Qasba, the bloodshed of Mohajirs in Hyderabad occurred when MQM did not exist. The media and others are reluctant to narrating those tragedies in which the Mohajirs were the sole victims prior to the creation of MQM and emergence of Altaf Hussain as their sole and undisputed leader, he said.
It is also very unfortunate that the national media that always sidelined the MQM is now indulging in deep relations with those dissenters who ran the party for 20 years.
These elements were always unacceptable to them when they were in MQM, but today they are their beloved figures, he lamented.
The recent rebel Ashfaq Mangi was facing various legal cases and was hiding here and there to escape arrest, he alleged.
MQM deputy convener Nadeem Nusrat said that Karachi that produce 70 percent of total revenue of the country but still the governments do not spend on development of this city. The rights of the people have to be given. The powers should be devolved down to grass root level and the elections of Mayor and Deputy Mayor has to be given for the resolution of grievances of the masses.
He appealed to the country’s top civil-military leadership, including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and COAS General Raheel Sharif, to intervene in the matter and stop ‘baseless’ propaganda against the party. He also demanded an end to a ban on speeches of Altaf Hussain, saying the party chief should be given a chance to defend himself.