Pakistani security forces raided the offices of a political party run by an exile living in London yesterday, arresting at least 20 activists and seizing a “huge quantity” of weapons allegedly stolen from Nato.
At least one party worker is believed to have been shot during the pre-dawn raid on the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), whose leader, Altaf Hussain, is on bail in Britain facing allegations of money laundering.
Schools and businesses in Karachi closed amid fears of violence after the raid on the party’s headquarters.
The MQM has been accused of using intimidation and violence to control Karachi. It denies the claims.
Paramilitary forces, who have been trying to impose order in the city since 2013, put the operation into action after receiving information that several known criminals had been sheltering at the office in the Azizabad neighbourhood, including one who had been sentenced to death in absentia for the murder of Wali Khan Babar, a television news journalist, in 2011.
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“We have arrested people who had criminal backgrounds,” said Colonel Tahir Mahmood, who was leading the masked Rangers Anti-Terror Squad. “There were some criminals to whom the court has handed down the death sentence.”
A statement from the Pakistan Rangers, a heavily armed force that provides back-up to the city’s ill-equipped police, said that a haul of sophisticated weapons, including assault rifles, was seized.
“The finding of weapons carries a question mark and we will investigate it,” Colonel Mahmood said. He added that some of the weapons “cannot even be [legally] imported to Pakistan”. He added: “We suspect that these weapons may be those from missing Nato containers.”
The port of Karachi has been used by western governments to import military equipment to Afghanistan.
Mr Hussain has been running Pakistan’s fourth largest party from a small office in Edgware, north London, since his self- imposed exile in 1992. He has accused the Pakistani military of conducting a “terrorist” operation and denied that the weapons belonged to the MQM.
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Addressing party workers by phone after the raid, he expressed anger that troops had also raided his sister’s home in Karachi. Mr Hussain was granted British citizenship in 2002.
Faisal Subzwari, another senior leader of the MQM, appeared to contradict Mr Hussain’s comments, claiming that the weapons were being kept for security reasons and were all licensed.
He said that they had to have weapons because of repeated threats against the MQM from “Taliban and other extremist elements” in the country.