HYDERABAD: Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi chairman Afaq Ahmed Khan has said that trading of allegations between Pak Sarzameen Party and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan in the wake of failed merger talks clearly shows both the parties lack capacity to lead their people.

He said at a press conference at the residence of Usman Kennedy, who quit Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and announced joining MQM-Haqiqi, on Thursday evening that “everybody knows about the role being played by different characters in this saga”.

He said that he was open to talks with any political party but not to those who could not honour their own words.

He said that one “leadership” was just trying to save its skin and the other “leadership” was only trying to protect its friends. In the process, both were deviating from their ideology, he said.

“Those who are seen joining a particular party are doing it only to get rid of cases and they don’t have any ideological association,” he said without naming PSP or MQM-P.

Under a planned conspiracy, leadership had been divided but though “leadership is divided, not the Mohajirs, neither should their vote bank be,” he said.

Mr Khan, who had visited Hyderabad for the first time after his release from prison in December 2011, announced holding a public meeting in Hyderabad on Nov 24 and said that he was in the city to tell his community he would not leave them in the lurch.

He said that his party’s slogans had been removed in Hyderabad on the pretext of National Action Plan (NAP) but nobody removed flag or graffiti of PPP ahead of Oct 18 event.

He admitted he was involved in politics of ethnicity but it did not mean he hated other communities. He never preached hatred against anyone and accepted other ethnic entities so his community’s existence should also be accepted, he said.

He denied he had enjoyed support of army in 1992 when he entered Karachi and said “we didn’t have any link with any force at that time”.

Mr Khan said that 12,000 people were killed to ‘occupy’ Karachi.

“When peace can be restored today under NAP why such initiative was not taken then? It was not done because it was not intended,” he said.

To him Altaf Hussain was an enemy of Pakistan if he raised slogans against the country but Mohajirs could not be punished for the sins of Altaf, he said.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2017