KARACHI: The PPP-Muttahida coalition got a jolt on Thursday after Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza accused the MQM of getting 3,500 criminal cases against its members wrapped up through a ‘cyclostyled order produced by the prosecutor-general of the provincial government’.
Dr Mirza, speaking at the inauguration ceremony of a PPP media centre, appealed to Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry to reopen and investigate all cases wrapped up under the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).
A spokesman for MQM played down the flare-up, saying the remarks were the minister’s personal opinion, and not the stance of People’s Party.
The minister said the record of the cases was enough to ‘open the eyes of the media and the nation’.
He said he would present within a week the record of all cases which had been suppressed by hoodwinking the Sindh government and the judiciary.
He made a dig at MQM leader Farooq Sattar for his assertion that his party was not involved in corruption, wondering whether Dr Sattar was sent to prison for ‘distributing charity’.
He also accused MQM of obstructing the entry of the chief justice at the behest of then president Pervez Musharraf.
Dr Mirza said reconciliation was based on the principle of forget and forgive, but ‘our colleagues are instruments of the establishment and if it is a war, we also know how to fight a war. We fought a war for 12 years and power was not given to us in charity.’
Talking to a TV channel later, Muttahida Qaumi Movement coordination committee member Salim Shehzad said: ‘People conspiring to destabilise the government want to spawn rifts between us. We are allies of the government and want it to complete its tenure.
‘We will not play into anyone’s hands. Nor will we be part of any conspiracy. We did criticise the government, but did not level allegations nor will we do it now.’
He said the minister’s statement might be his personal opinion, and not the policy of the Pakistan People’s Party. If it was PPP’s policy then President Asif Ali Zardari should express it, he said.
Salim Shehzad said the cases had been abolished through a tribunal under the ordinance and if Dr Mirza deemed it a fraud, then the entire NRO would be a fraud.
Shehzad said that if the home minister wanted to reopen the criminal cases, he should go ahead and do so. ‘The MQM is ready to face them.’
If the Supreme Court or high court ordered reopening of the cases, the MQM would welcome the decision, he said. However, he asserted that in addition to the criminal cases, all other cases should also be reopened.
‘No threat could frighten us in past nor will it happen in future,’ he said.
The MQM leader said the cases against the MQM had been filed during PPP’s rule and all of them were criminal, and not related to corruption.
In reply to a question about bitterness with the PPP, he said MQM’s stance on the NRO might be the reason.
He said the country was facing crises and the circumstances necessitated forbearance.
'If we go wrong somewhere, we will apologise. If they are wrong then they should set their direction right,' he said.
The MQM leader said some members of the coordination committee would meet PPP leaders soon for patching up differences.
Shehzad said a member of the committee had come up a poem that spoke about December as the moment of truth for the government.
The composition had ruffled feathers, he added, but clarified that it was the individual’s personal opinion, and not the party’s stance.
APP adds: Dr Mirza said: ‘Our friends want to destabilise democracy by becoming a tool of the establishment.’
He said a criminal would always be a criminal no matter whether he was in ‘dhoti, sherwani or Sindhi topi’.
‘If someone wants our accountability, we too know how to hold others accountable,’ he said.
Tags: karachi,MQM,zulfiqar mirza,sindh,home minister
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