Karachi: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the powerful party in southern Pakistan on Wednesday dismissed a BBC report that accused the party of having links with India and its RAW intelligence agency.
Journalist Owen Bennet-Jonnes, who already has published several reports regarding MQM, in his report for the BBC claimed the party was being funded by India and its workers were being given military training by Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).
The report quoted an unnamed Pakistani source but it did not carry any source from the United Kingdom, where London metropolitan police are interrogating a money laundering case against party supremo Altaf Hussain, who lives there in exile.
In a statement the party said that “the MQM rejects all the allegations levelled in the BBC report and it is a patriotic party that believes in solidarity of the country and a stable Pakistan.”
It added that it has faced similar allegations in the past by its domestic opponents but they had all proved to be false over the passage of time.
The MQM, which was founded by Hussain to represent ethnic “Muhajirs” who migrated from India during the Partition of 1947, has held sway over Pakistan’s economic hub since the 1990s.
Political observers believe the party, which was close to the country’s powerful military establishment during the rule of former military dictator Pervez Musharraf, has since fallen out of favour and is being targeted by the army, which desires to reduce its influence.
British authorities are also investigating the party over the 2010 murder of one of its influential leaders Imran Farooq in London, while Islamabad has officially made one arrest in connection with the case.
Critics of the party have claimed that the killing of Farooq was linked to an internal dispute in the party, which has been run from London by exiled leader Hussain for over two decades.
