KARACHI: Portraits and posters of Altaf Hussain, supremo of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which dotted the streets and thoroughfares of this mega city for decades, have been removed days after a senior leader of the party disowned Hussain’s controversial statements.
Life-size cutouts and portraits were a permanent feature of the city streets for many decades, especially in and around Nine-Zero, the party headquarters. These were removed from the scene Thursday.
However, the tacit reversal of Hussain’s legacy came days after Farooq Sattar, the seniormost MQM leader in Pakistan, took charge of the party this week after Hussain delivered a controversial speech at the hunger-strike camp of the party.
The speech was a blow to the powerful party that holds sway in the largest city of Pakistan and other urban centres in southern Pakistani, which were in shambles for years following operations against it.
The situation worsened on Monday, when Hussain, the self-exiled founding leader of the party, raised anti-Pakistan slogans and commanded party workers to take local media houses to task for not according proper coverage to the party.
“We denounce the anti-Pakistan slogans chanted at the hunger strike camp ... we completely disown the statement,” Sattar told a recent press conference, after being released from overnight detention by paramilitary Rangers.
Nevertheless, Hussain had withdrawn his statement and tendered an apology to the nation and military authorities, whom he accuses of extra-judicial killings of party workers.
Sattar said Hussain’s telephonic speeches were embarrassing the party time and again and vowed this would never reoccur.
He also explicitly held out that party affairs would be run from Pakistan henceforth.
After the controversial speech, police charged Hussain with treason and inciting terrorism. Security forces also sealed the party’s headquarters in Karachi.
For more than two decades, Hussain has addressed supporters through a loudspeaker linked to his London home telephone.
