They had staged a hunger strike. They had meant to carry it to their last breath. They had appeared het up and disgruntled with the state institutions for having swooped away their ‘innocent’ workers. Yes, they were innocent and guiltless; they were picked and ‘disappeared’ for no fault of theirs, pleaded they. As they continued their strike, there were whispers from the other nook of the house that their sit-in was just a farce, and that they themselves were the cause of strife and bloodbath in the city. Amidst these conflicting voices came a speech of Altaf Hussain, the spearhead of the team and the ‘symbol of terror’ in the city.
Altaf Hussain urged upon his staunch disciples to attack all those media houses that debar his voice to thunder across the country. The rhetoric did not stop here. He moved on to chant anti-Pakistan slogans. His disciples, silently sitting, hands bound in esteem, around the loudly reverberating telephone, were made to have no choice but to nod yes to the anti-state mantra of this self-exiled leader who himself comfortably abides in London.
I believe many of them do not wittingly synchronise their voices with that of this ‘Londoner’. They are made not to think out of the box. The fear factor looms on their heads. You can quit the job of a spy agency, a political party anywhere on the globe, or an organisation anywhere in this entire world, but you can’t dare to think of leaving the party of the ‘Bhai’, a party that rules the roost in Karachi. Fear of a brutal death, perhaps, is the most formidable reality.
The fear factor stretches so deep and wide that a member of the British House of Lords, who had vociferously spoken against the vandalism of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in Karachi, said, “If I went to Karachi now I would be killed.” In a speech, Hussain threatened TV journalists: “If you don’t stop the lies and false allegations that damage our party’s reputation, then don’t blame me, Altaf Hussain, or the MQM if you get killed by any of my millions of supporters.” These are not mere threats; the MQM men apparently know the technique to execute what their leader blurts out.
In 2010, a police officer of Karachi sought asylum in London on the plea that the MQM could kill him any time as it had killed all those policemen who were part of the operation in Karachi back in 1990s. The British judge, Lord Bannatyne, granted asylum to him, and in his judgment accepted: “The MQM has killed over 200 police officers who stood up to them in Karachi.”
In the presence of such evidences recorded either by the British judiciary or media, what role then remains of the British government about a person who is a British citizen, a Londoner, but provokes violence in Pakistan? The reply is best worded by Owen Bennett-Jones in The Guardian almost three years ago. He says: “The MQM is British turf: Karachi is one of the few places left on earth in which the Americans let Britain take the lead. The US consulate in Karachi no longer runs active intelligence gathering operations in the city. The British still do. When it comes to claiming a place at the top table of international security politics, London’s relationship with the MQM is a remaining toehold.”
The west always blames Pakistan for letting its land to be used to import terrorism. My query here is from the British prime minister why she allows her land to import terrorism in Pakistan. Hussain has in the recent inflammatory speech not only raised anti-Pakistan slogans, but also incited his workers to attack news offices, and that was what the obedient workers did with all zeal and zest. All this has been happening from London over the years.
In the latest development, Dr Farooq Sattar, leading from the MQM Rabta Committee, has ‘dissociated’ the party from the MQM London, giving the signal of parting ways from Hussain’s kinds of politics where Pakistan has been vituperated many a time. But there lurks a ‘method’ in the signals. His was the well-conceived presser wrapped in layers of deliberately planted obscurities. First, he didn’t articulate if Altaf Hussain would ever make a speech to MQM’s gatherings. Second, if Hussain’s ‘mental health’ recuperates in a while, and he loudly cries with a tinge of compunction over his past rants against Pakistan, makes solemn pledges not to ever replicate such an error in future, and the Rabta Committee becomes duly satisfied with the sound mental equilibrium and the confessions of its esteemed leader, will Hussain again be allowed to be in the front seat, and steer ahead the canoe of MQM in the turbulent waters of Karachi’s politics?
In the press conference, Sattar did not forget to mention the 60 disappeared workers of the MQM whom the party deems innocent. I wonder when the MQM cries over 60 killed workers — whom the law enforcements agencies reckon as offenders — and it stages a hunger strike as a protest why the MQM leaders don’t arrange a sit-in for the victims of Baldia Town, Zahra Shahid, Wali Baber, or the 200 policemen who were slain on the heels of 1990s operation in Karachi. The number runs into thousands. Is there any political party in Karachi that may go on a hunger strike for these fallen, nay felled, sons of the soil?
Things can be set right when there is zero tolerance policy on crimes and criminals. The state must take up measures to deal with the perpetrators. Moreover, prudent diplomacy from the foreign office must be initiated with the countries where the instigators of violence are comfortably ensconced. Media must play its part in exposing the ones hidden under veneers. This time media has beautifully and unanimously remained united when a nefarious voice erupting from a foreign land abused Pakistan.
The writer is a lecturer at the Punjab College, Lahore, and can be reached at [email protected]