Mustafa Kamal tirade won’t dent MQM: Barrister Saif

ISLAMABAD: Reacting to the joint-press conference of Mustafa Kamal and Anis Qaimkhani, MQM leader Senator Barrister Mohammad Ali Saif said Thursday that media interaction by only ‘two people’ would not dent the party.

“Altaf Hussain is an undisputed leader…he has millions of followers…allegations hurled by Mustafa Kamal bear no significance,” he said.

Barrister Saif said the MQM did not need to respond to the ‘baseless allegations’ leveled by Mustafa Kamal. The people have complete trust in the party and they have demonstrated the same time and again, he added. 

Meanwhile, former interior minister Rehman Malik dismissed allegations regarding his influence on the top MQM leadership, terming them as ‘unfounded’ and ‘nothing but joke’.

“Mustafa Kamal’s talk about me is baseless, and nothing more than a joke.”

In a fiery tell-all press conference upon his return to Karachi, former city nazim Mustafa Kamal announced a new party in a direct challenge to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) earlier in the day.

Flanked by former fellow MQM leader Qaimkhani, this was the first media appearance by the two leaders after a prolonged absence from local political scene and rifts with the leadership of their former party.

Kamal accused Altaf Hussain of insulting party workers several times in public meetings, especially once in May 2013 when he changed the party set up overnight.

He recalled that during his time in the MQM, the party's Rabita Committee would continuously be degraded and insulted by Altaf Hussain within weeks and months, but recently the situation had worsened so much that the Rabita Committee would now be insulted every few minutes.