A battle for Karachi

Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a southern Sindh province-based political party, came under direct conflict with the Pakistani authorities on Monday, August 22, when its exiled leader Altaf Hussain criticized the army and government officials of systematically targeting his workers.

Hussain, who has been living in a self-imposed exile since the early 1990s, also called Pakistan "the epicenter of terrorism." The politician warned the authorities that his followers would choose not to be loyal to the country if the "extra-judicial killings" of his activists continued.

Soon after his speech, a group of protesters, allegedly belonging to the MQM, attacked a private TV station in the southern Karachi city, leaving one person dead and several injured. The MQM alleges that the TV channel toes the line of the military establishment and ignores its plight. The party, however, denies that its activists targeted the TV station.

The paramilitary forces reacted swiftly, detaining MQM's top leadership, including members of parliament, and sealed the party's offices across the city overnight.

"We have sealed the MQM headquarters, their media office and (their) hostel, some weapons have also been recovered," Khurram Shahzad, a commander for the regional paramilitary Rangers force, told reporters Tuesday.

The government action forced the MQM leader to soften his anti-government stance.

"From the depth of heart, I beg pardon from the Pakistani establishment," he said in a statement on Tuesday. "I was under severe mental stress over extra-judicial arrests and precarious condition of my workers sitting at hunger striking camp."

While the authorities accuse the MQM of racketeering, abductions, torture and murder, the political group that represents the Urdu-speakers that migrated from India to Pakistan after the partition in 1947, denies these claims and instead complains of decades of discrimination and injustice.

A 'battle' for Karachi's control

"There are three stake holders in Karachi - the MQM, the Pakistan Peoples Party led by Former President Asif Ali Zardari, and the paramilitary forces. The paramilitary force Rangers is actually not interested in maintaining peace in the city. If there is peace in Karachi, they will have to leave. The city has become their permanent base. The MQM and the PPP are also corrupt, but the security forces are also running different kinds of mafias in the city," Tauseef Ahmed Khan, an Islamabad-based political analyst, told DW, adding that the Karachi crisis demanded a political solution.

Khan says that Karachi's migrant community has always felt marginalized and neglected since Pakistan's independence from British rule. "In the 1960s general elections, the mohajir (migrant) community supported Fatima Jinnah against Ayub Khan, the military dictator. That offended the military establishment. The mistrust between the state and the mohajirs still exists," Khan added.

But Farhan Hanif Siddiqui, a lecturer at the Islamabad-based Quaid-i-Azam University, holds the MQM responsible for the city's volatile situation. "The MQM claims to be a liberal and secular party but in reality it is quite the opposite. It is known for the use of violence as a tool to accomplish political goals and keep the city under its control," Siddiqui told DW.

Siddiqui believes the MQM is now losing its grip on the city, which is not only Pakistan's economic hub but also has immense geostrategic significance because of its proximity with the Arabian Sea.

Beginning of the end?

The Pakistani government is contemplating asking the British authorities to repatriate Hussain. Several provincial assemblies have passed resolutions against the MQM, with politicians calling Hussain a "traitor."

Rafat Saeed, DW's Karachi correspondent, says some MQM officials are now also distancing themselves from Hussain.

"Hussain's Monday speech has harmed the MQM immensely. Even the MQM's officials cannot own the speech. Many people had their sympathies with Hussain and his party because of the crackdown on the MQM activists, but the speech has changed those dynamics," Karachi-based journalist Mazhar Abbas told DW.

Additional reporting by Sattar Khan, DW's Islamabad correspondent.