ISLAMABAD: On Saturday, The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) registered a case against Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) Chief Altaf Hussain and other party leaders in the murder of former MQM leader Dr. Imran Farooq.
The case, filed by FIA’s counter-terrorism wing in Islamabad, has been registered for “conspiracy, assistance, abetment and ultimately assassination /murder of Dr. Imran Farooq, ex-parliamentarian and senior member of MQM in London on Sept 2010. The case has been registered under sections 302, 34, 109, 120B of the Pakistan Penal Code and section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act,” read a statement issued by the agency.
The news comes as polling in Karachi for local government elections is under way, with MQM as a strong contender.
The government of Pakistan through FIA’s counter-terrorism wing is the complainant in the case.
Others nominated in the case include Mohammad Anwar, Iftikhar Hussain, Moazzam Ali Khan, Kashif Khan Kamran, Syed Mohsin Ali and Khalid Shamim.
Their voters will clearly know the intention behind such a decision by the government. MQM workers will not be deterred by such baseless allegations, he said, while talking to Geo News.
MQM leader Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, reacting to the development, questioned the ‘timing’ of the case, adding that “it was an attempt to malign the MQM.”
Earlier, Interior Minister Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan had stated that the federal government has decided to lodge a First Information Report (FIR) in Dr. Imran Farooq murder case in Pakistan.
An editorial published in Dawn earlier in the week, criticized the decision by the interior minister as an absurd notion which is only heightened, perhaps, by the fact that not just does it come from Pakistan, but also comes from amongst the highest tiers of government and concerns a high-profile murder case that is potentially politically explosive.
Two of the nominated suspects Syed Mohsin Ali and Kashif Khan Kamran are said to have acquired British visa on the basis of their admission to the London Academy of Management Sciences in East London.
According to information shared by the UK, phone records showed that they usually moved together and were allegedly in contact with a close relative of MQM chief Altaf Hussain.
They left the UK on Sept 16, 2010, hours after the murder, for Sri Lanka before travelling to Karachi on Sept 19.
Mohsin Ali was arrested along with another accused, Khalid Shamim, in July, 2015, by the Frontier Corps in Baluchistan.
Dr. Farooq, a senior leader of MQM, was murdered outside his home in London in 2010.