**Did Musharraf and MQM’s Altaf Hussain Collude in Planning May 12 Karachi Massacre of Opposition and Chief Justice Supporters?
**
British Intelligence Said to Have Tape of the Two Men’s Conversation; Musharraf told Altaf to “Teach Our Opponents a Lesson”
By Dr. Waqar Kazmi
Pakistan’s military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, spoke on the telephone with the London-based leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) two days before the May 12 attacks on opposition activists and supporters of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry by the MQM in Karachi and asked Altaf Hussain to help “teach our opponents a lesson,” Pakistani intelligence sources have revealed.
Musharraf’s collusion with the MQM supremo in the cold-blooded murder of at least 42 people, most of them non-Muhajirs, exacerbated resentment against Musharraf within Pakistan’s security establishment, which feels the general should not have resorted to using the ethnic card to thwart the wave of popular protests that has paralyzed Musharraf’s regime for almost three months. Musharraf, like Altaf Hussain, is a Muhajir though as an officer of the Pakistan army he is expected to think as a Pakistani and not in ethnic terms
Officials within Pakistan’s security establishment informed this writer that British Intelligence might be in possession of a tape recording of the Musharraf-Altaf conversation, which could undermine both controversial figures. In the conversation, Musharraf and Altaf Hussain come across as ruthless manipulators with little regard for the life of Karachi’s citizens or for ethnic harmony among Pakistanis.
Leaks from Pakistan’s security services have been instrumental in encouraging Pakistan Tehrik-e- Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former cricketer, Imran Khan, to announce that he and his lawyers would file a case against MQM Chief Altaf Hussain in London. Imran Khan called Altaf Hussain “Pakistan’s biggest terrorist and mastermind of the Karachi killings.”
In his address to the Peshawar High Court Bar Association (PHCBA), Imran Khan said he would also discuss with British Prime Minister Tony Blair the issuance of British passport to “a Pakistani terrorist,” meaning Altaf Hussain
The PTI chief demanded that the U.S. government stop supporting the “illegitimate government” in Islamabad. An open letter to U.S. Congressmen and British parliamentarians is also being written that accuses the MQM of attacking opposition parties’ workers who had gathered in Karachi on Saturday, 12 May 2007 to welcome the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
Imran Khan has asked all opposition parties to form a joint front against the MQM, which he said could not become a political party unless it parts ways with “all terrorists, including Altaf Hussain and Ishratul ul Ebad” –Musharraf’s governor of Sindh province.
Following the May 21 events in Karachi, the British media has already run a number of articles scrutinizing Altaf Hussain’s role as MQM’s “Godfather” and British authorities, too, are believed to have increased surveillance of the MQM leadership which secured political asylum in the U.K. during the 1990s.
For his part, General Musharraf showed defiance in the face of criticism over the ongoing judicial crisis and shrugged off the criticism over MQM’s killings and anti-opposition violence in Karachi at a meeting of parliamentarians belonging to the King’s party, PML-Q and its coalition partners.
I m not sure how true is this, but if Musharaf really has ordered something like this than its really really a shameful thing… i think the importance of a life should not be forgotten no matter how much you hate other opinion… and as a head of a state he should value it a lot more…
I just hope its not true.
http://www.new-pakistan.com/issue%2038/Did%20Musharraf%20and%20MQM’s%20Altaf%20Husain%20collude.html
