THIS refers to a photograph of preparations underway for Mustafa Kamal’s public meeting at Bagh-i-Jinnah (April 22). The overconfidence of Mustafa Kamal, his ability to live in style without any visible means of recurring income, and to start a costly venture like politics, and the ease with which he managed to raise millions of rupees to organise the event at Jinnah grounds, all point to some dirty rich group behind him. It is not even difficult to visualise who that would be.

A recent Dawn report, ‘Bahria Town Karachi: greed unlimited’ (April 18) had plenty of details about the ruthlessness and greed of that group, enacted through heavy bribing.

There are allegations from the MQM of its members receiving threatening telephone calls to ditch the MQM and join the Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) or else be prepared to face punitive action.

The MQM has been protesting about the coercive measures used against its members as also their disappearance, even extra-judicial killings.

There is also evidence that whoever leaves the MQM and joins Mustafa Kamal’s party seems to be absolved of all wrongdoing.

Could it mean that at some level, the ruthless operator has infiltrated the ranks of the law-enforcers and the ‘loyal’ gang is trying to increase the influence of the operator over the city, the province or maybe even the country through his pet political party, while officially appearing to be involved in an activity to tame MQM for the good of Karachi and Sindh.

Now, at a time when everyone is talking about ‘accountability’ and the army chief has started it with his own institution – dismissing 11 army personnel, though with some complaints of punishment being insufficient – suggestions of officials involvement in the creation of a political party for the benefit of an unscrupulous operator leaves a bad taste in the mouth. It could amount to undoing all the good work done so far, involving great sacrifices.

Syed Riaz

Karachi

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2016