On 28th April 2017, some Indian outlets ran a story which announced that members of a new mysterious group called World Muhajir Congress met with members of The House Foreign Affairs Committee and briefed them on “strong connection between the ISI and terrorist groups”. The story was mostly ignored by Pakistani media for a few days except for Daily Pakistan. The word ‘Muhajir’ is an Arabic-origin term used in Pakistan to refer to Muslim immigrants and their descendants of multi-ethnic origin who migrated from different regions of India after the Partition of India to settle in the newly formed state of Pakistan. Today, Muhajirs are considered an ethnic minority in Pakistan and their political stronghold is Karachi. The general meaning of the word ‘Muhajir’ in Arabic and Urdu is the same: Muslim immigrants.

At this point some questions come to mind: what exactly is World Muhajir Congress? Who is behind it? Why is it lobbying U.S. government against Pakistan? And so on. To get answers, we will have to go all the way back to 22nd August 2016.

The MQM-London Connection

Last year on 22nd August, founder and leader of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) Mr. Altaf Hussein, during a live audio speech to MQM members in Pakistan who were protesting at the time, made some highly provocative comments, bordering on incitement to violence and treason, about Pakistan and Pakistani Army. These comments were not against the government but against the state and the national army. While Mr. Hussain had made similar comments with lesser intensity in the past in private functions of MQM in U.S., Canada, etc., this was the first time this happened in Pakistan during a public protest and was instantly covered by all national media. On Mr. Hussain’s part, the speech was no accident and was well-timed. None of the main MQM leaders in Pakistan knew this was going to happen until it was too late. Local MQM leaders went into damage control mode later that night but it was too late and soon after that a crackdown started against MQM’s political activities. The crackdown left MQM, which was already divided into three groups by then (PSP, Haqiqi and Altaf group) was now divided into four groups; a new group emerged with the name of MQM-Pakistan which was led by Mr. Farooq Sattar and Mr. Amir. The remaining pro-Altaf Hussain group emerged as MQM-London but since it is not a registered party in Pakistan, its activities were banned and several of its members were arrested. But even today MQM-London has many supporters in Pakistan, who are no more concentrated in Karachi. Instead, MQM-London’s operatives have scattered themselves across the country as well as abroad. Very recently MQM-L operatives were arrested from Islamabad along with heavy weaponry while similar raids across Karachi continue to expose large quantities of weapons, explosives and ammo hidden by MQM-L members. By analyzing the kind of weapons, explosives and ammo found hidden across Karachi by MQM-L members any security expert reaches the same conclusion: these caches of weapons weren’t meant for petty crimes but to wage a small war against a national army as anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons were included in these caches.

Since getting all but outlawed in Pakistan, MQM-L’s rhetoric against Pakistan and its state institutions has increased as they have little to lose now. Very recently Mr. Altaf Hussain said in a statement, which was widely quoted in Indian media, that Pakistan Army and Rangers is pushing Sindh towards civil war. Amusingly, Altaf didn’t explain if Pakistan Army was pushing Sindh towards civil war then why were MQM-L’s members preparing to wage civil war in Pakistan since as far back as 2008 and why does everyone from Pakistani media to BBC accuse MQM-L to be involved in heinous crimes including burning alive the very same Muhajirs they claim to represent.