HYDERABAD: The Altaf Hussain-led Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) on Friday evening nominated a 12-mmber zonal committee for Hyderabad during a meeting held at the residence of Zafar Rajput, a member of the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation.

Momin Khan, a member of the party’s Pakistan-based coordination committee, said the names had been announced with the appro­val of the London-based leadership.

He said the name of the zonal committee’s head would be announced later.

The zonal committee includes four members —Javed Khan, Abdul Rasheed Khan, Amir Iqbal and Abid Ghori — who were part of it before it was dissolved along with all other bodies by the party’s London-based leadership.

The other members are Farzana Anwari, Dr Fauzia, Rizwana Aslam, Ahsan Warsi, Shujaat Naghar, Fahim Baig Mughal and Zafar Rajput.

One of the participants in the meeting claimed that 90 per cent of the 79 MQM councillors were present.

“We have the resignations of some of our MPAs with us but we are not going to disclose their names because this may land them in trouble and they may also face pressures,” he said.

The powers that be should note the numerical strength of the meeting and understand that the ‘minus-one formula’ did not work.

“The message is loud and clear,” he added.

According to a senior leader of the Dr Farooq Sattar-led MQM-Pakistan, the party stood split into four and it was perhaps the desire of the establishment. He said: “We will try to put facts before people so that they could know the reality and realise that what is being shown is not reality alone.”

Apparently referring to the developments within the party’s Hyderabad chapter, he said: “We will try to manage [things in] Hyderabad”.

Under a directive from the MQM-London, the local chapter is trying to get its zonal office, located at Bhai Khan ki Chari, unsealed.

“And we will also try to get some alternative place to start work,” said a meeting participant who was a member of the previous zonal committee and parted ways with the MQM-Pakistan only after Altaf Hussain’s most recent video message was released.

“I have already told them [MQM-Pakistan] that I cannot stay associated with them,” he said.

A sitting member of the MQM-Pakistan’s Hyderabad zonal committee who wished not to be named said that he was reluctant to associate himself with the MQM-London if the leadership abroad of its coordination committee here continued with something that was regarded as anti-Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2016