KARACHI: Senior leader of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) Dr Farooq Sattar has claimed that families of several ‘missing’ workers of the party and those languishing in prison are being forced to change their loyalties.

Without disclosing identity of those who he claimed were approaching the families of ‘missing’ MQM workers, Dr Sattar told a press conference here on Saturday evening that the relatives of such party workers were being threatened as well as lured with temptations to change their loyalties.

He said they were being contacted through ‘unlisted’ phone numbers. “Efforts are still under way to implement a minus-one formula.”

He said MQM was about to launch a cleanliness drive in the city and its struggle for an empowered local government system when it got entangled in a debate about the party’s organisational weaknesses of 2013.

Dr Sattar said that since 2013 MQM was trying to sort out its organisational shortcomings and it had abolished the Karachi Tanzeemi Com­m­i­ttee, formed a central exe­cutive council and informed the public about the reasons behind the overhauling.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2016