KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain on late Thursday night, withdrew his earlier announcement to sever all ties with his party.

The MQM leader made the announcement during a telephonic address to party workers at Nine-Zero.

Altaf stepped back from his earlier announcement after emotional pleas and chants from MQM workers who urged him to take back his decision.

He said that if his party workers were happy with him, then he would continue to lead them.

However, he also warned that if any more MQM workers were killed then a wheel jam strike would follow the next day.

He had initially stated that he would deliver his last address to MQM workers and supporters on Friday.

Earlier today, as parts of Sindh shut down on the MQM's call to observe a day of mourning over its worker Sohail Ahmed's killing, Altaf Hussain announced that he would sever all ties with his party,

Talking to a private news channel he had also asked for the nation's forgiveness.

The MQM chief had claimed that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had never accepted him and accused the country's premier intelligence agency of implicating him in cases even though no corruption was proved against him.

He also said that he had seen the 'ISI's hand supporting the lawyers movement against former president Pervez Musharraf'.

Read: Partial shut down in parts of Sindh over MQM strike call

Altaf said he held Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah responsible for the murder of 36 party activists, according to a statement issued on the MQM's website.

The remarks of the MQM supremo come as his party observes a national day of mourning and a wheel jam strike in Sindh over the 'extrajudicial killing' of one of its workers in Karachi.

Also read: MQM walks out of Sindh Assembly during CM's address

MQM representatives on Tuesday staged a walkout after shouting slogans during Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah's address in the Sindh Assembly.

Shah had termed the MQM's protest, which was staged a few days earlier at the CM House, as an "attack on the CM house" rather than the expression of a grievance.