Daily Times

KARACHI: MQM-Pakistan PIB faction leader Farooq Sattar said on Sunday that his party’s activists were under pressure from powerful quarters to abandon the party and switch to Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP).

Speaking to the media, Sattar said he would request the Chief of the Army Staff and the Cheif Justice of Pakistan to look into the matter.

Sattar also said that he would never consider leaving the MQM-Pakistan, responding to rumours that he was made an offer by the PSP leadership to join the party. “I will prefer dying over joining any other party,” he said.

“I’m risking my life, even putting my life on the line,” said Sattar.

The MQM-PIB leader demanded that intimidation of MQM lawmakers must stop. He said his party’s lawmakers were being warned of dire consequences if they did not leave the party and join the PSP. He requested the army chief to take notice of the matter.

The MQM-P leader also expressed his desire to meet Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar to seek redress of his party’s grievances.

“A conspiracy is being hatched to keep MQM-P out of the electoral process,” he said, adding that free and fair elections were not possible in the current situation. “The elections are being engineered,” he claimed.

Sattar said MQM-P leaders were not joining the PSP out of their own freewill. “They were switching loyalties under coercion,” he said.

“A perception is being formed on purpose that MQM-P’s days are numbered, but nothing will happen to the party,” he said.

Dispelling rumours that he was joining the PSP, Nishat Zia and other MQM-Pakistan leaders said they were not leaving the party. Zia said he would remain with the party, revealing that he was under pressure to join the PSP.

“Anees Qaimkhani invited me to join the party,” he said, “Farooq Sattar has assured me that we are all together so I have decided to stay.”

Another MQM-P member Jamal Ahmad also said that PSP representatives were persuading him to join the party for the last five days.

A day earlier, MQM-P leader Shabbir Ahmed Qaimkhani had joined the PSP following a meeting with the party leadership in Karachi and on Sunday MQM-P MPA Sumeta Afzal Syed announced joining the PSP at a press conference. She was elected to the Sindh Assembly on a reserved seat for women.

More than a dozen MQM-P members, both provincial and national lawmakers, have recently quit the party and joined PSP.

Responding to Sattar’s talk, PSP chief Mustafa Kamal said his party had no role in what was happening with the MQM-Pakistan, adding that infighting was leading party activists to come close to the PSP.

“Farooq Sattar called me minutes before the Senate elections and asked for votes,” Kamal held, adding that Sattar also asked PSP to lend supporters to be sent to his faction’s rallies.

The PSP chief vowed that Sattar, around a year ago, told him he would ‘bluff’ Muhajirs. He also questioned under whose pressure had Sattar contacted the PSP leadership and attempted to join the party last year.

Kamal then announced that his party’s doors are forever closed for Sattar.

On other hand, MQM-Pakistan Bahadurabad leader Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui asked Sattar to clarify accusations levelled against him by PSP chief Mustafa Kamal.

He was addressing a press conference along with senior party leaders Amir Khan and Nasreen Jalil in Karachi. Siddiqui said despite a few party members exit from the party, MQM-P was stronger than before.

“We have faced severe crises in the past as well, but we have always come out stronger,” he said. “If tomorrow, any one of us asks people to vote for us on any other symbol than that of MQM’s, don’t vote for us. We won’t let our sacrifices go in vain.

“Workers must inform us if they are facing any pressure,” he said, adding, “we will face it together. I am standing with my workers.” To a question, he said that any attempt to remove Karachi mayor Wasim Akhtar from his post will be considered a conspiracy against the city.

Published in Daily Times, April 16^th 2018.