BBC report, upshot of utter 'malicious intent', says MQM

KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) Coordination Committee Thursday vehemently condemned a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) report highlighting latest developments in Dr Imran Farooq murder case as an upshot of malicious intent, Geo News reported.

"The report is slanderous. It has been mischievously manipulated to soil MQM's image," said Kahaliq Maqbool Siddiqui, a senior MQM leader addressing a press conference at the MQM headquarters Nine Zero.

Quoting a document obtained from official sources in Pakistan, the BBC in a report, broadcast Wednesday, said that British Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had asked the Pakistani government to trace and identify two men suspected of the assassination here of Dr Imran Farooq in September 2010.

The investigative report, aired during the BBC's flagship Newsnight, mentioned the two men originally from Karachi — Mohsin Ali Syed and Mohammed Kashif Khan Kamran. It is believed that the two suspects are in Pakistani custody even though they have not been formally arrested.

Siddiqui, who was flanked by other MQM Coordination Committee members, also accused BBC of "rigging" the report to distort the facts so that it could be given an anti-MQM slant.

MQM leader, Dr Farooq Sattar, also seconded his fellow leader's statement.

"The report is strictly aimed at tarnishing our leader, Altaf Hussain's image", said Sattar.

He said MQM was faced with national as well as international conspiracies.

Senator Farogh Nasim, who represented MQM on Wednesday's Newsnight programme, said that all the points he had raised with the host, Owen Bennett, in defence of MQM, were insolently edited out.

"The BBC gagged my rebuttals regarding money-laundering allegations. They aired only what suited them to make it a hate-report. We will drag the corporation in the court of law for defamation", said Nasim.

Earlier, MQM in a statement issued had said the life of the party chief Altaf Hussain was in "serious danger."

In his message to the nation, which came on the heels of the BBC report, the MQM chief claimed that fake cases were being framed against him at the international level, adding he would not bow down before foreign pressure.

Altaf Hussain also asked MQM’s coordination committee, elected representatives, and workers to remain vigilant as conspiracies were being hatched against him.

It must be recalled that in November 2011, the Metropolitan Police Chief, Bernard Hogan Howe, had told Geo News in an exclusive interview: “People may be aware that the Pakistan authorities arrested two people, I believe in Karachi, during the year and that was on the grounds of this murder... we are liaising with Pakistan authorities to see how we pursue this investigation.”

Pakistani authorities are refusing to confirm or deny the presence of the two suspected men in Pakistan and the British authorities are refusing to discuss the details of the case, especially about the two wanted men.

The BBC said that the two men applied for visas as students and were granted admission to the London Academy of Management Sciences in East London but there was no suggestion that the college at any stage knew the real aim of the students.

The BBC also named a third person Muazzam Ali Khan, a freight company owner in Karachi, who had helped the two students come to London.

The BBC, quoting the college, said that the two students were meant to attend the college but at least one of them turned up to register and then disappeared.

Asif Siddiqui, one of the directors of the college, said that the college had reported one of the student's non-attendances to the UK authorities in May 2012.

The BBC claimed that the British investigation had found that Mohsin Ali Syed, a one-time member of All Pakistan Muttahida Students Organisation (APMSO) in his late 20s arrived in the UK in February 2010 and lived at a number of London addresses including bedsits in Tooting, South London, and Whitchurch Lane in Edgware - all the time monitoring the movements of the estranged MQM leader.

Mohammed Kashif Khan Kamran, according to the BBC, had arrived in the UK in early September 2010. The two men stayed together and moved around together. After his arrival the two men constantly kept Dr Imran Farooq under surveillance from dusk to dawn and were familiar with all of his movements.

After Dr Imran Farooq was murdered using knife and bricks at his doorstep, the murder weapons were left at the scene of the crime.

The BBC suggested that the DNA from the two suspects could establish whether or not they were at the scene of the murder. The police have said that they have eye-witnesses who saw Dr Farooq being killed and found DNA of the two men from the crime spot.

The suspected killers left the UK on 16 September --a few hours after the murder took place and flew to Sri Lanka. The BBC claimed that Pakistani security officials picked them up as soon as they came out of the plane.

Dr Imran Farooq, the 50-year-old founding member of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), was attacked as he returned home from work in September 2010. He died from multiple stab wounds and blunt trauma to the head, a post-mortem examination found.