KARACHI, Aug 15 Showing his party's lack of interest in any action against former president Pervez Musharraf, Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain on Saturday asked political and religious parties to take measures for addressing real problems of the masses instead of focussing on what he called 'non-issues'.

In what appears to be a policy announcement on the issue of the former president's trial and a possible repeal of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), the MQM chief made it clear that his party was not interested in any such thing since it did not consider them 'real issues'.

Mr Hussain expressed these views during his telephonic address from London to a workers' convention organised at the headquarters of the Khidmat-i-Khalq Foundation here. The speech of the MQM chief was also relayed simultaneously in several cities of the province where similar conventions were held.

Although he was of the view that including Mr Musharraf everyone, who had violated the law and the Constitution, should be brought before courts for his/their deeds, he said that any accountability process, if launched, should start from the first military dictator and his all 'collaborators'.

He went on to say that those parties which had voted for the 17th amendment in the Constitution and those which had welcomed martial law and distributed sweets on the demise of late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto should also be held accountable.

About the controversial NRO, he maintained that the MQM, which is one of the beneficiaries of it, was not concerned with the possible abolishment of the ordinance “If you want to abolish the NRO then please do.....we are ready to face courts of law,” he said in the context of the cases quashed under the NRO.

Mr Hussain asked the NRO critics as to why they remained silent and not criticised a similar deal, which the leadership of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) had made with the then military dictator, Pervez Musharraf.

Defending the existing local government system, the MQM chief appealed to President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to call representatives of the local government system from across the country and listen to their viewpoint before taking any decision about the fate of the system. “Maybe some people have reservations on this system, but it definitely has served people during the last eight years,” he observed.