Center, Sindh on same page over action against MQM: sources

According to ARY News Islamabad correspondent Zulqarnain Haider, Chief Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah had assured Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan that strict action will be taken against MQM after party chief Altaf Hussain’s anti-Pakistan tirade. There is also an agreement on sealing illegal MQM offices.

Sources in central government say that a suggestion regarding ban on MQM is also under consideration but the government wants court to act against the party.

Nisar had arrived in Karachi after the anti-Pakistan speech and attack on ARY News Karachi office and met the chief minister and governor of Sindh.

It is pertinent to note here that at least 200 MQM offices have been sealed. Party’s illegal offices including those in Gulshan-I-Iqbal, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Quaidabad, Landhi, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Shah Faisal Colony, Tariq Road and Tariq Bin Ziyad Colony have been demolished.

Stick-wielding workers of MQM had forcibly entered in ARY News’ office in Saddar and ransacked the office’s reception, marketing section, harassed workers and set fire to the employees’ vehicles on Monday, August 22.

The attack occurred after the party chief’s speech in which he incited the workers to attack media houses and allegedly asked them to raise anti-Pakistan slogans.

The resulting situation forced the party’s Karachi Rabita Committee to dissociate itself from the party’s London-based chief’s statements while some senior members including Amir Liaquat Hussain and Irum Azeem Farooque left the party as protest.