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KARACHI: A senior leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement disclosed here on Sunday that bank accounts of the party’s chief Altaf Hussain in London were being frozen and asked MQM’s workers and supporters at a large meeting here to continue their ‘peaceful struggle’ against the British government.
“Today’s rally is against white Englishmen,” MQM leader Dr Farooq Sattar said in his speech at the rally held to demonstrate solidarity with Mr Hussain. “Altaf Hussain is cooperating with [UK] police but why they are harassing him. The British measures against him are a political problem.”
A large number of people, women and children among them, converged on the M. A. Jinnah Road and both tracks of the city’s main artery were filled from Tibet Centre to the Quaid’s Mausoleum.
Mr Hussain, who has been living in London for over two decades and is now a British citizen, did not address the meeting held to condemn money-laundering investigations against him by the UK authorities.
While Dr Sattar harshly criticised the British authorities, other speakers adopted a soft tone and requested Prime Minister David Cameron to ease the problems of Mr Hussain who, they said, was an important force for solidarity of Pakistan.
Dr Sattar said Mr Hussain and MQM were fully cooperating with the British officials investigating the money-laundering charges. “But don’t they see the money laundering by the Pakistani elite... why don’t they ask about their wealth in the UK?”
He said the British authorities had taken away the Ipad and laptop of Mr Hussain’s 11-year-old daughter and had not returned her gadgets. “What is the connection of an 11-year-old with money-laundering charges? Why don’t they return her Ipad and laptop? They are obstructing her education.”
He said the MQM wanted to know why the British authorities were stopping Mr Hussain from ‘saving Pakistan’. Why they were freezing his bank accounts when there was no case and why they wanted to keep Mr Hussain away from the process of policymaking in Pakistan, he asked. He said the MQM would continue its peaceful struggle and also move courts on steps taken by the British authorities against its chief.
Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2014
