KARACHI: Two leaders of Muttahida Qaumi Movement have urged President Asif Ali Zardari and Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry to take action against Sindh’s former home minister Dr Zulfikar Mirza for accusing MQM chief Altaf Hussain of ‘being a separatist’.

Deputy conveners of the party’s coordination committee Dr Farooq Sattar and Anis Qaimkhani, in their letters to the president and the chief justice, drew the attention to what they termed a plot hatched by Dr Mirza to incite hatred and engineer ethnic riots in Sindh, particularly in Karachi.

A press release issued by the MQM here on Wednesday said that at a press conference in August Dr Mirza alleged, holding the Quran in his hands, that the MQM chief confided to him during a meeting in London in the presence of Sindh’s Senior Minister Pir Mazharul Haq that he was working on a plan to dismember Pakistan in collusion with the United States. The MQM and its leadership dismissed the allegation as frivolous, baseless and utter lies.

The MQM said that on Nov 21, Pir Mazharul Haq refuted the allegation in categorical and unequivocal terms and told a TV channel that “Mr Hussain had never said anything, overtly or covertly, about a conspiracy to break up Pakistan and that Dr Mirza told a blatant lie and his allegation was unfounded and baseless.”

The press release said: “In the same interview, Pir Mazharul Haq said that Dr Mirza must seek Almighty Allah’s forgiveness for uttering a blatant lie while holding the Holy Quran in his hands and committing a sacrilege.”

Dr Sattar and Mr Qaimkhani said the president and the chief justice should take action against Dr Mirza “for tarnishing the image of Altaf Hussain and misleading people with a blatant lie and accusing him of being a separatist without any substantive proof. This has hurt the feelings not only of Mr Hussain but also of millions of his followers”.