The taming of Mutahidda Qaumi Movement

Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) was pushed into a crisis it was not ready for.

One of the most powerful ethnic organisations in history is finally about to break up and metamorphose into something that would acceptable to the Pakistan army currently trying to put down a decades-long civil war in Karachi, Pakistan’s most important city.

On Wednesday, November 8, two factions of the Mutahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM) staged in Karachi what was meant to be their “merger”. Chief of the MQM-Pakistan, Farooq Sattar, reluctantly nodded as chief of the Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP), Mustafa Kamal, told a rather unruly MQM congregation that the merger would mean the two would contest the 2018 general elections under “one name, one manifesto, one symbol and one party”. The PSP, often said to be “put up” by “the state” to tame the post-Altaf MQM, was internally agreed on the idea of the merger; the MQM-Pakistan was apparently not, the proof of which was that some of its leaders resigned while some approached archenemy, the Pakistan People’s Party, for membership. Sattar even tried to deny that it was a merger and that his MQM-P was really gone.

Only days ago, Sattar was accusing “the state” of being behind the MQM desertions to the PSP. What was more lethal for him and could have precipitated his submission was the assertion on the part of some deserters that he was still secretly aligned with Altaf Hussain, the London-based leader from whom he had announced his disconnection. One possible reason why he had not been submitting to the state’s persuasion — of joining the PSP — was the presence of many killers of the MQM underworld in Karachi still taking orders from Altaf Hussain. But then the desertions started, and finally when too many seemed inclined to jump ship, he decided to merge the parties with rival Kamal already reported in the media as deployed by “the state” for a final taming of the MQM.

What is the plan behind this move by “the state” now fighting the MQM’s criminal underworld in Karachi? The quid pro quo it was offering Sattar became clear in Mustafa Kamal’s speech, clearly making Sattar wince: An entire army of the party-workers now under scrutiny or under arrest and facing trial, would be “forgiven” (amnesty) after the two MQM fragments declare themselves as one party under a name that would not even hint at it serving the cause of the “migrants” (muhajir). Sattar kept mum and didn’t even nod when Kamal announced the demise of the MQM and its rebirth as an all-Pakistan party of Pashtuns, Sindhis, Punjabis and the Baloch.

Two days of high theatre wit tear-jerking contribution from social media came to an end with no prospec of peace in Karachi politics and between two factions of the old MQM. Sattar made his longest speech on record to attack what he didn’t challenge in Mustafa Kamal’s harangue against the muhajir (migrant) identity of the party which he had said must be dropped in the new name of the post-merger party. Last year, Sattar had taken his party away from the old MQM after his leader in London, Altaf Hussain, denounced Pakistan for betraying the “migrant” community. Sattar seems to have not only gone back on the “merger” with the PSP but also recognised the powerful rump of the MQM-Alta in Karachi.

In September 2016, when the MQM-PSP split occurred, the question everyone had asked was: Will MQM Pakistan assert its independence from MQM London and yet retain its hold on the Karachi votebank? The answer was deadlocked because opinion was divided, and those incredulous of MQM Pakistan chief, Farooq Sattar, asserted that a complete divorce from the cult leader, Altaf Hussain, would not be possible. What everyone ignored was the fear of the Pakistan-based leaders of getting “disclosed with proof” as killers and bhatta-khor (extortionists) by the London head office.

Farooq Sattar, who leads the main breakaway MQM, is already an “absconder” from court whose new warrants for arrest were issued once again on Monday, September 20, 2016. Most top leadership serving under him were likewise “wanted”. Another interesting development which should worry Sattar is the reinstatement, as Senior Superintendent Police (SSP) Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) Karachi, of Omar Shahid Hamid, son of the head of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC), Shahid Hamid, killed by the MQM in 1997.

Omar is on record as stating that his father was killed after he received death threats personally from Sattar for not coughing up the “bhatta” money demanded from him. Omar was in the police department as SSP before he fled to the United States “on long leave” after receiving death threats in 2011. While there, he wrote two revealing books, one on the kidnapping and killing of journalist Daniel Pearl, and the second on the growth of militancy in Pakistani society.

The writer is consulting editor, ‘Newsweek Pakistan’