KARACHI: Pak Sarzameen Party chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal on Monday accused Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui of working for Indian intelligence agency RAW and demanded that the government impose a blanket ban on MQM-P’s name, flag and election symbol.

However, the MQM-P rejected Mr Kamal’s allegations and termed them a “pack of lies”.

Speaking at a press conference here, Mr Kamal, who has been demanding a ban on MQM for the past four years, said that the director general of Inter-Services Public Relations and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had held a press conference in which they gave “solid proofs” of MQM’s links with RAW.

Accompanied by PSP president Anis Kaimkhani, he said that the government and the state had kept the remaining RAW set-up in Karachi “alive” in the form of the MQM-P, whose presence he said in any form was a clear threat to the security of the country.

Muttahida slams PSP leader’s comments as ‘pack of lies’

Although the MQM-P had claimed to have dissociated itself from its London-based founder Altaf Hussain after his Aug 22, 2016 incendiary speech, Mr Kamal insisted that the party members had promised Mr Hussain that they would hand over the MQM to him at the “right time”.

“Altaf Hussain’s name is being kept alive in Pakistan today in the form of MQM-P’s name, party flag, [election] symbol and [party] letterhead, as these four things are being used worldwide to defame Pakistan,” he said.

He said that the recent foreign minister-ISPR press conference mentioned names of alleged Indian agents Shahid Muttahida and Adil Ansari, who were arrested from Karachi, and they disclosed in their investigation report that it was Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui who took them to India for training.

Mr Kamal recalled that 20 years ago Dr Siddiqui went to India on the instructions of Mr Hussain where he allegedly tore up his Pakistani passport. He said RAW provided him an Indian diplomatic passport on which he left for the United States from where he returned to Pakistan after 13 years and became MNA, then federal minister and now head of the MQM-P.

Mr Kamal, who until recently had condemned a “conspiracy” against Dr Siddiqui when he resigned as federal minister and vowed to “stand with him because neither he has blood of Mohajir youth on his hands nor he created a Haqiqi-like party”, alleged that two close aides of the MQM-P convener worked for RAW from India and Canada for the past 18 and 20 years, respectively.

Demanding a complete ban on the name, flag and election symbol of the MQM, he said if the state did not act all its statements and press conferences would be considered as a bad joke with the people of this country.

The MQM-P having seven members in the National Assembly and five senators is vital to keep the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led coalition government intact.

Knowing this, Mr Kamal proposed that the MQM-P lawmakers should be allowed to remain part of the current government in order to avoid what he called a political crisis.

He said that legal experts like Law Minister Dr Farogh Naseem could find a way to avoid a constitutional crisis for the government.

He also asked MQM-P leaders to do politics with new names, flag and symbol warning them he would continue to spill the beans.

MQM-P rejects allegations

An MQM-P spokesman rejected as “baseless” all allegations of Mr Kamal against Dr Siddiqui and said the party and its convener were leading a people’s struggle in accordance with the Constitution of Pakistan and law of the land.

In a statement issued on Monday, the spokesman termed his press conference a “pack of lies”.

He said Mr Kamal had claimed in the past to have buried the MQM-P and its election symbol kite but the people had “buried his artificial party and symbol” in the 2018 general election.

He said that people of urban Sindh had rejected the PSP chief because of his “lies and abusive” style of politics and they would continue to do so in future as well.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2020