Altaf rebuts BBC report, says it isn’t a Quranic verse

LONDON: Muttahida Qaumi Movement's (MQM) London based leader Altaf Hussain on Thursday said he respects the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) but its recent story 'accusing MQM of receiving funds from India' was being presented as a 'Quranic verse'.

Addressing a workers meeting after the BBC broke an explosive story about MQM and its alleged Indian funding, Altaf said his party had faced many operations in the past and once again ‘some people’ wanted to crush the MQM.

He rejected the BBC report in categorical terms, saying the story was ‘fabricated and baseless’.

Hussain said that, despite 37,000 conspiracies against MQM during its 37-year long presence, the party was still intact and that he was still leading the party from the front.

He asked his workers to continue their struggle in case he is assassinated.

He said Khawaja Asif warned of MQM’s 'loadshedding' soon as he (Asif) raised his finger towards Rashid Godil, the party's leader in the National Assembly.

Hussain asked Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan to hold the Holy Qura'n in his hands and to tell the nation if all the operations launched in the past were not against MQM.

He claimed that the interior minister was exchanging documents with the British officials.

The MQM chief urged Nisar to invite the British High Commissioner one more time and ask him to launch a probe against Finance Minister Ishaq Dar for his past statement in which he (Dar) had admitted to committing the crime of money laundering.

"Killers of Dr Imran Farooq were not captured in the last five years but suddenly there are claims that the murderers were arrested from Chaman border," he added.

The MQM leader said "crushing MQM is tantamount to elimination of Pakistan".

He said BBC journalist Owen Bennet-Jones quoted an ‘authoritative’ Pakistani source in his story, asking the interior minister as to who his (Owen's) Pakistani source was.

It may be noted here that yesterday BBC broke a story accusing MQM of getting funds from India. The news story claimed that two of MQM's senior London-based leaders had confessed to receiving funds from India.