KARACHI, July 14: Widely believed to be a shadowy organisation with close and ill-disguised ties with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the Mohajir Rabita Council was formed over two decades ago with the stated aim of working for the rights of Urdu-speaking people.

Maulana Wasi Mazhar Nadvi, former mayor of Hyderabad and former federal minister, along with some likeminded elders of the Mohajir nation had established the MRC in March 1988. He became its first president.

Initially, the organisation did not support the politics of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement and its chief Altaf Hussain, but later it developed a soft spot for Mr Hussain.

Another MRC president, Syed Ishtiaq Azhar, openly supported the MQM soon after the army launched an operation against it in June 1992.

Mr Azhar later became an MQM senator and the first convenor of its coordination committee.

The MRC split into two factions as a group led by Nusrat Mirza did not want to support the MQM.

However, the faction led by Mr Azhar continued to support the MQM and Mr Hussain, who telephonically addressed all major functions and annual conventions of the organisation.

However, in 1997, Mr Azhar was removed as MRC president by the central executive committee, which appointed MNA Ejaz Mehmood as its new chief.

When the Mohajir Qaumi Movement became the Muttahida Qaumi Movement — with the necessary change in orientation of its politics — the MRC did not follow suit.

Though it is widely believed that the present MRC is a sister organisation of the MQM, its general-secretary Arshad Siddiqui categorically denied it.

“The MRC has no connection with the MQM…it is altogether a separate entity which has no concern with the MQM’s organisational structure.”

However, Mr Siddiqui said that MQM chief Altaf Hussain was the supreme leader of the MRC, as the organisation had belief in him.

“The MRC is the party of Mohajirs and struggle only for the rights of its people.”

He said that the current president of the MRC was Yaqoob Bandhani and an 18-member central committee ran the affairs of the organisation in a democratic manner.