KARACHI: Angered by a lack of response by his party’s coordination committee to the killing of an office-bearer in Sialkot, Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain sent the Karachi- and London-based members of the top decision-making forum packing on Wednesday and asked his workers “to prove that the MQM can work without them”.

A large number of MQM workers converged on the Karachi Press Club and offered funeral prayers of slain activist Bao Mohammad Anwar. They also demonstrated against the PML-N government which they accused of being responsible for the killing.

Tension gripped the metropolis with commercial and business activities coming to a sudden halt after Mr Hussain’s address, but the MQM announced at night that transport and businesses would remain open on Thursday.

So angered was the Muttahida chief with the coordination committee which merely issued a press release condemning the Tuesday night killing of MQM’s Sialkot vice president Bao Anwar that he suspended all its members in Karachi and London and summoned an emergency meeting of his party workers at his Karachi residence, popularly known as Nine Zero.

In his telephonic address, Mr Hussain started sobbing as he complained that he was left alone by those whom he had trusted the most.

He accused the coordination committee and parliamentarians of making money by “selling playgrounds and streets, forgetting the party and workers”. Mr Hussain, who is a British citizen and has been living in self-imposed exile for more than two decades, asked the British government to return his passport so that he could go to Pakistan to “embrace martyrdom”.

He said “the army, ISI and Rangers” could kill him but he was prepared to face any hardship.

Mr Hussain warned that no Punjab minister would be able to enter Sindh if the killing of MQM workers was not stopped. Later, Mr Hussain assigned Qamar Mansoor and Arshad Hussain the task of overseeing party affairs in Karachi and London, respectively, and said he would appoint a new coordination committee soon.

Published in Dawn December 11th , 2014