Daily Times

KARACHI: The Counter-Terrorism Wing of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Saturday filed a request to an anti-terrorism court (ATC) seeking permission to conduct a search of the KKF’s offices and seal the record in light of an ongoing money-laundering probe into the MQM’s social welfare division.

According to a report produced by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), funds worth at least Rs 6 billion were funnelled into the MQM’s Khidmat-e-Khalq Foundation (KKF), from where they were sent to undisclosed locations abroad, including London.

The report states that the aforementioned funds, which were collected via means of extortion and ransom from innocent civilians, were used to finance terrorism and anti-state activities.

In this regard, multiple former and incumbent members of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), including Dr Farooq Sattar and Kanwar Naveed Jameel, have been summoned to Islamabad between February 27 and March 7, 2018.

The request was made on the back of the revelations from the case investigation and an analysis of the KKF’s record, following a complaint lodged by Sarfaraz Merchant.

The case has been filed with the FIA State Bank Circle, while the probe continues under a joint collaboration between ATCs in Karachi and Islamabad.

A money laundering case was lodged against the MQM supremo and KKF in Karachi in 2017. However, it was later transferred to the FIA’s Counter-Terrorism Wing, Islamabad.

It is also pertinent to note here that following an inflammatory speech by the party founder in August 2016, the MQM broke up into two factions. Later, some members defected to other political parties as well. Last week, an anti-terrorism court (ATC) published an advertisement in The Guardian, a British media outlet, wherein it declared the London-based founder of the MQM a proclaimed offender in the murder case of Dr Imran Farooq – the late senior leader of the party who was assassinated in London, on September 16, 2010.

Published in Daily Times, February 26^th 2018.