LONDON: British authorities are likely to charge Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) founder Altaf Hussain with incitement to violence and terrorism, and have sought Pakistan’s help in this regard, a Report in the local media said on Wednesday.
According to the report, Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is focusing on violence associated with speeches given by Hussain on March 11, 2015 and Aug 22, 2016.
The charges being considered by the British authorities range from encouraging violent disorder, inciting others to commit terrorism outside England and Wales to encouragement of terrorism. Other charges could include intentionally encouraging or assisting an offence. The various offences fall under the Terrorism Act, the Serious Crime Act and the Public Order Act, the report said.
A British document sent to Pakistan on Aug 8 recounts how, after the Aug 22, 2016 speech, some of Hussain’s supporters went on the rampage in Karachi. “Towards the end of the speech, he seemed to be encouraging the audience to go and attack local media stations,” the document says.
According to the report, the protesters attacked the office of a local news channel, ARY News. “As a result of the violence, one person was killed and several others were injured.” The document names the deceased as Arif Saeed.
In the Aug 22 speech, Hussain said: “Pakistan is headache for the entire world. Pakistan is the epicentre of terrorism for the entire world. Who says long live Pakistan…it’s down with Pakistan.”
Later in the speech when he asked — “So you are moving to ARY and Samaa [offices] from here…right?” — he received from the crowd a unanimous and loud reply in the affirmative. “So you go to Samaa and ARY today and then refresh [yourself] tomorrow for the Rangers place. And tomorrow we would lock down the Sindh government building which is called Sindh Secretariat.”
According to the report, the CPS document also cites a less well-known speech made on March 11, 2015 following the Rangers’ raid on Nine Zero. After that raid, the document says, Hussain gave a live interview on Geo TV. Reports about the interview indicate that the MQM founder denounced the raid, and said the death of an MQM activist, Waqas Shah, during the raid deeply upset him. He also accused the Rangers of planting the ammunition they seized at Nine Zero.
The report said that the most likely explanation of the CPS’s interest in the otherwise largely forgotten March 11 speech is that nine days later, on March 20, 2015, the Pakistani authorities lodged a complaint to the british authorities requesting that Hussain be investigated for his comments on March 11.
A potentially controversial aspect of the request concerns the death of Waqas Shah during the Nine Zero raid. The British document observes that: “The Rangers have denied that he was killed by them,” and goes on to request: “a statement and any further details from any pathologist regarding the post mortem or cause of death in relation to Mr Waqas Shah.” The MQM has claimed that, in fact, Waqas Shah was killed by the Rangers.