Probe under way against Altaf: UK police

 

Murtaza Ali Shah, May 16, 2013 

 

LONDON: Both the London Metropolitan Police and UK High Commissioner to Pakistan Adam Thomson have confirmed receiving “floods” of complaints against Altaf Hussain, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader, and the police say that an investigation was under way. The Metropolitan Police sources have confirmed thousands of calls from Pakistanis over Altaf Hussain’s remarks in relation to Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf’s sit-in at the Teen Talwar Chowk in Karachi, the alleged incitement of violence against protesters and threats to break up Pakistan.

 

The MQM has said that its leader’s words have been taken out of context by the party’s opponents but the unprecedented backlash continued over these remarks as calls and emails continued to come in from Britain, Pakistan and other countries, forcing the Metropolitan Police to issue a message to the callers not to use “Metropolitan Police’s international number for repeated reports of the same issue”. Speaking to The News, a police spokesman confirmed that the police were being contacted and that an investigation was under way against Altaf Hussain.

 

“Under British laws promoting hatred and violence is liableto punishment and Altaf Hussain’s statements must be taken seriously,” Thomson said, adding that London police were independent to investigate the complaints and were under no pressure from the UK government. This is for the first time that such a campaign has been initiated and it is believed that Imran Khan’s supporters, heavily active on social media and public forums, are behind this campaign after the tiff between the MQM and PTI started in Karachi over alleged vote-rigging in NA 250, forcing Altaf Hussain to intervene.

 

The reaction by Imran Khan’s supporters, educated, well-heeled and adept at using modern tools, may come as a big surprise to the MQM and is bound to make the MQM leadership rethink whether it’s advisable to get involved in such controversies and drag the party into of needless disputes.

 

Several other players have also jumped into the controversy calling on the British government to take notice of the alleged remarks of the MQM leader. Respected MP for Bradford West George Galloway called upon the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to “arrest a British citizen for incitement to murder. It is an open and shut case. You can watch his lips move on television, broadcast from London, in the wake of the controversial election count in the giant port city of Karachi, Pakistan. Hussain openly threatened the young democracy protesters agitating for a re-run of the election there that he would have them cut them down with swords”.

 

Galloway has also tabled questions to British Prime Minister David Cameron and Home Secretary Theresa May. Sajjad Karim Conservative MEP for the North West, told a European Parliament briefing that “extremist forces at work through genuine political actors who sat in Europe were able to issue threats to people in Pakistan by live satellite link”. Karim alleged that the leader of the MQM had issued “live direct threats to people that they will pay with their lives, unless certain actions were followed. And indeed,threatening the very existence of Pakistan as well”.

 

Habib Jan, Friends of Lyari International’s London-based leader, has also written to Home Secretary Theresa May MP requesting “action” over incitement to violence “against persons demonstrating peacefully against the rigging of the recent election by the MQM”. The MQM has always said that this group has links with Lyari criminal gangs.