MQM chief Altaf Hussain arrested in London

ISLAMABAD: The founder of the

Muttahida Qaumi Movement

(MQM), one of Pakistan’s biggest political parties, was arrested by Scotland Yard in an early Tuesday morning raid in

London

.


“A man has today, Tuesday, 11 June, been arrested in connection with an investigation into a number of speeches made by an individual associated with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement in Pakistan,” read a statement by London’s Metropolitan police, without naming Altaf Hussain.

The Met police only confirmed that a man in his 60s had been held in an investigation into speeches related to his MQM party. “He was arrested on suspicion of intentionally encouraging or assisting offences contrary to Section 44 of the Serious Crime Act, 2007,” the statement added. His arrest, however, was confirmed by Qasim Raza, his spokesperson.

While several complaints were registered against Hussain in UK over his hard-hitting speeches against Pakistan’s military establishment and spy agency

Inter-Services Intelligence

(ISI), the focus of the London Met police was on his speech in August 2016. A police team had visited Islamabad in April this year to gather evidence and interview key persons related to Hussain’s 2016 speech.

On August 22, 2016, Hussain, while addressing MQM workers protesting outside Karachi Press Club against enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings of his party’s workers, had not only raised anti-Pakistan slogans but also called the country “a cancer for the entire world”.

“Pakistan is a cancer for the entire world. Pakistan is a headache for the entire world. Pakistan is the epicentre of terrorism for the entire world. Who says long live Pakistan... it’s down with Pakistan,” the MQM founder had said.

Chaudhry

Nisar Ali Khan

, Pakistan’s interior minister at the time, had sought assistance from British authorities, asking them to take action against Hussain for inciting the people of Pakistan to violence.

The MQM has dominated politics in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi for three decades. Previously known as the Mohajir Qaumi Movement, Hussain’s party had started off as a political group aiming to represent the Urdu-speaking community, descendants of people who migrated from India when Pakistan was created in 1947.

His political career began during his student years in Karachi University when he and Azeem Ahmed Tariq had founded the All-Pakistan Mohajir Students Organisation (APMSO). Within a short period of time, APMSO gained a massive following and under Hussain’s leadership MQM swept the 1988 election in the urban areas of Karachi and Hyderabad, in Sindh, emerging as the third-largest party in Pakistan.

In the early 1990s, the then government had launched an operation against MQM in Karachi, accusing it and its chief of using violent tactics to attain and retain political power. Hussain went into exile in 1992 after his arrest warrant was issued in a murder case and later gained UK citizenship.

Despite a split in the MQM, he still wields considerable influence in the party and its main power base, Karachi.

From self-imposed exile in London Hussain would address crowds of supporters of his party in Pakistan via the telephone till 2016 when broadcasts of his speeches were banned by the state.