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Prisoners on death row are never heard making public statements and that too via video camera. It was extremely shocking to watch Saulat Mirza on a TV channel accusing MQM leaders of masterminding the murders of political opponents and party dissidents. Many of these charges may not be new, but an insider’s account would appear to give them some credence.
What is most intriguing is how the video camera was allowed in the death cell and the recorded message then leaked to the media, just hours before Mirza’s execution was to take place. Surely it could not have been possible without the active connivance of the security agencies. What is the deal then? Going by body language, could the confidence in Mirza’s voice and his relaxed demeanour be expected from a man whose life clock was ticking?
Surely the nature of the charges is very serious, but coming from a man facing the gallows it raises some valid questions about the motive behind this sudden awakening of Mirza’s conscience. More important, however, is whether the government is serious about investigating those charges, or are they just being used for political bargaining as has happened many times in the past.
There can be little doubt that the security agencies were behind this unfolding drama involving the MQM.
Saulat Mirza is not an ordinary prisoner. A feared alleged MQM hitman, there are accusations that he ran a network of target killers from his death cell for over a decade and that no one could check his activities in jail. His execution orders remained pending since 2002 for unspecified reasons. Things, however, started changing last week when a black warrant for his execution was finally issued by an anti-terrorism court. Then the story took a new twist with his startling revelation that he had allegedly committed murders on the direct orders of Altaf Hussain and some other senior leaders of the party.
Predictably, Mirza got a short reprieve from the gallows after his extremely damning disclosure involving the MQM chief.The interior minister says the execution has been postponed for health reason, although the video did not show any signs of his ill health. Hours after prison officials confirmed he was to be hanged Mirza was given a temporary stay of execution by the president.
Not surprisingly, the MQM leaders have denied that Mirza had any connection with the party, though his rise from an activist of the party’s student wing to a convicted assassin is a matter of public record. The story of Mirza does not appear too different from that of many other jailed activists of the party.
Mirza was implicated in multiple murder cases including the assassination of two American employees of a multinational oil company, but was only convicted for the high-profile murder of Shahid Hamid, a senior civil servant in 1997. The death sentence remained apparently because the victim’s family refused to come under pressure from the MQM to forgive.
He is now repentant and has offered to help other ‘misguided’ party workers — indeed, it is a good cause, but the realisation seems to have come too late in the day. He blames the party leaders for his actions, although his own role as an alleged mastermind of targeted killings must also be questioned. He sounded extremely dejected because his leaders had dumped him. He perhaps thought that he would never be executed and that his party would stand behind him. But that was not going to happen.
There is little doubt that security agencies were behind this unfolding drama as the noose around the MQM was being tightened. Curiously Mirza’s confessionary statement surfaced days after the raid on the MQM headquarters in Azizabad and claims of arrests of several wanted target killers.
Earlier a report by a joint interrogation team that blamed the MQM for the 2012 fire at a garment factory in Karachi that killed more than 250 workers made its appearance after being consigned to cold storage for over a year. The incident allegedly happened after the factory owner failed to pay ‘protection’ money.
Mirza’s statement is an indictment of the MQM leaders especially of the party chief. Such charges against the party and its top leaders keep surfacing regularly in a well-choreographed fashion. Didn’t we see all this happening in 1992 during the army operation and then again in 1995? Then all was forgotten for reasons of political expediency.
Meanwhile, senior leaders of the party appeared to be systematically eliminated. Some were believed to have shown dissent. Many police officers involved in the 1995 operation were also killed. Although suspicions led to the MQM’s doors, no one was arrested. In fact, the party remained an important part of the power coalition during Gen Musharraf’s military-led rule and then in the PPP government that allowed it to rebuild its political strength in Karachi.
Now matters have come full circle with the party under siege again. With the party leader facing investigation by British authorities for money laundering and the murder of Imran Farooq, one of the party’s founder members, the MQM appears much more vulnerable.
Saulat Mirza’s case has exposed the politics of crime involving one of the country’s most controversial political forces with an incredible record of political ups and down. Mirza’s statement is perhaps the most damning indictment of the party leadership that has also been accused of brooking no dissent.
No other political party in Pakistan has such a chequered history as the MQM that has frequently been accused of practices that have earned it a dubious reputation. These allegations may have left the party and its leaders unscathed in the past, but things appear much more serious this time. But will the law come into force against those implicated in the crime? The dead man is talking and one hopes that the law will do its job.
The writer is an author and a journalist.
Published in Dawn, March 25th, 2015
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