Former Karachi mayor Mustafa Kamal launches no-holds-barred tirade against MQM chief
KARACHI: Former Karachi mayor and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader Syed Mustafa Kamal on Thursday arrived in Karachi after two years.
Mustafa Kamal was accompanied by senior leader and former Rabita Committee deputy convener Anees Qaimkhani. The two MQM leaders will address a press conference in the metropolis at 3:00pm today.
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“This is my first press conference since I left MQM,” Kamal said while addressing the media at his DHA residence in Karachi.
Explaining that he wants to address three key issues, the former Karachi mayor said that he wants to apprise everyone why they left the country in 2013, why they have come back and what they plan to do next.
“I want to recall what happened from 2008 to 2013 that led me to my decision to leave the country,” he added.
“In 2013, for the first time a non-Urdu speaking party, PTI, received numerous votes in MQM strongholds,” he said. “We thought, the MQM chief would learn from this and correct himself but he did not.”
But instead, the MQM chief threatened to attack innocent PTI workers sitting at Karachi’s Do Talwar, he continued. Further, lashing out at Altaf Hussain, Kamal said, “The MQM chief has never learnt from past mistakes and will never change.”
“We told Altaf Hussain not to issue such remarks but since he has never accepted his mistakes, he disrupted the party structure on May 19, 2013 while he was drunk,” the former Karachi mayor continued. Everyone is a witness of what happened that day with the leaders of the MQM, he added.
Kamal questioned the kind of language the MQM chief uses and said, “I wonder who we made god.”
The MQM supremo drank heavily and bluffed while he was in that state of mind, claims Kamal.
Is this what the Rabita Committee was designed and created for? To furnish excuses for Altaf Hussain’s bad words uttered on the media? he questioned. “For the last 30 years, just to save Altaf Hussain’s dignity and prestige, we kept on defending him despite all,” he further said.
Lamenting MQM’s current status, Kamal said, “We were a patriotic community, now we are called RAW agents.”
Let me tell you why I, specifically, left the party. I was scared, I was so scared that God knew what I was doing and that I could not stop all that had been happening. I thought that to keep myself at the minimum level of Iman [faith] I can at least distance myself from all this mess, he continued.
“Our conscience had awakened and that is why we distanced ourselves from the wrongdoings,” Mustafa Kamal added. “I also knew myself and my family had life threats and that we would be killed if we opposed Altaf Hussain.”
And it was then when Allah bestowed His blessings upon us that we understand that decisions such as life and death are with Allah and not with Altaf Hussain, he further said.
The former Karachi mayor also claimed, “Back at that time I also knew Altaf Hussain’s people from the Indian and South African ‘setups’ were involved in killings in Karachi.”
I did not have any money nor any property, perks or privileges that I would worry about keeping and it was easier for me to wave goodbye to everything, he further said.
Responding to news of the former Karachi Mayor’s return, MQM leader Syed Ali Raza Abidi said, “This is Chaudhry Nisar’s last trump card against the MQM.”
MQM leader Wasay Jalil denied reports that an emergency party meeting had been called in London following Kamal’s return.
Kamal served as the mayor of Karachi from 2005 to 2009. In August 2013, he quietly left the country, moving first to Tanzania and then settling in Dubai, informing party leaders through emails that he had left because of his wife’s illness and personal problems.
Days later, Qaimkhani also followed Kamal’s footsteps to Dubai. According to news reports, Qaimkhani left the party and the country after MQM chief Altaf Hussain criticised and rebuked him over Kamal’s departure.
Citing personal reasons: MQM’s Mustafa Kamal resigns from Senate
In April 2014, Kamal resigned from the Senate citing personal reasons. “He is on leave from the party because of domestic compulsions, while his family is in Africa,” Farooq Sattar had said at the time. He had added that Kamal’s resignation had been submitted to the Senate’s chairman.
The former city nazim had submitted his resignation from the Senate in November 2013. However it was in April 2014 that the resignation was formally submitted and accepted by the Senate secretariat.
Kamal had distanced himself from the MQM after he left the country in August 2013 as the party cited ‘personal reasons’ and ‘medical treatment of his wife’, the motives behind his sudden departure from the country, as well as from party politics. According to sources, he was unhappy over the policies of the party, which introduced a new setup of the Rabita Committee last year.
Last month, an anti-terrorism court in Karachi issued non-bailable arrest warrants for Muttahida Qaumi Moverment’s mayoral candidate Waseem Akhtar, Anis Qaimkhani, Saleem Shahzad, PPP’s Qadir Patel and general secretary of Pasban-e-Pakistan Usman Moazzam.
The IO informed the court that while Rauf Siddiqui has already been granted bail in the respective case, Anees Qaimkhani and Saleem Shahzad are out of the country and hence cannot be arrested.
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MQM Rabita Committee holds meeting ahead of press conference
MQM Rabita Committee held an important meeting at party headquarters Nine-Zero, prior to Mustafa Kamal and Anees Qaimkhani’s press conference, scheduled for 3pm today.
According to reports, the meeting focused on the current political situation in the city.
As for Raza Haroon he was in-active member since May-13 ... He was very much expected 
