2- Criminalisation:

Elaborating the second aspect of the Establishment's three-pronged strategy, Altaf Hussain said criminalisation means that a particular community and its representative political party is portrayed as criminals and terrorists, that they are permanently tagged as criminals for their elimination. Criminalisation of Mohajirs means that they are not only presented as criminals, but treated as criminals too. The Establishment has especially coined the word "terrorists" for MQM leaders, workers and sympathisers, and they are called the same in the TV, radio, newspapers and magazines. If they are called criminals and terrorists with such regularity, it is only natural that the people will regard them as the same after some time. This is the Establishment's official policy that the MQM is presented not as a democratic political party but as a party full of criminals and terrorists and a party working for the secession of the State. Its leaders, elected representatives, office-bearers, workers and sympathisers are treated as criminals and terrorists and not as political workers aiming for constitutional and fundamental rights.

That is why countless false cases of murder, attempted murder, arson, terrorism and disturbance of public order were instituted against the MQM's leaders, elected representatives, office-bearers, workers and sympathisers. All the members of the MQM's Co-ordination Committee (Rabita Committee) and elected representatives including Senator Aftab Sheikh, Senator Nasreen Jalil, Dr Farooq Sattar, Sheikh Liaquat Hussain and Senator Ajmal Dehlavi are facing over 80 cases of grievous nature ranging from murder, attempted murder to terrorism. And while instituting these cases, their age, profession, academic excellence, societal status, nothing was considered. What only was considered, was their association with the MQM. So whoever joined the MQM, had to face this truckloads of criminal cases. The image of all the MQM leaders, elected representatives, office-bearers, workers and sympathisers was portrayed as terrorists and criminals to defame them on national and international level. It was made sure that those intellectuals, professionals and educated people who even wish to raise their voice against the State brutalities should think a hundred times before supporting the MQM cause.

To block the middle class revolution, MQM's message was stopped from spreading to the poor and middle class of other provinces, the Establishment spun schemes and arrested and tortured those Punjabis, Sindhis, Baloch, Pakhtoons, Seraikis and Kashmiris and their family members who dared to join the MQM. But it could not suppress the Haq Parast (righteous) people of these provinces who want to carry out their struggle against the feudal oligarchy in the guise of Establishment. He asked if the MQM is full of criminals and terrorists, then why the Establishment fails to explain people's support for it? If the people are with the MQM, despite State suppression, does it not mean that the MQM demands are justified that people of Pakistan have been denied their basic fundamental rights and have their genuine problems, which are wrongly projected by the Establishment.

Altaf Hussain said through criminalisation policy, the Establishment wants to present it to the world that there is no denial of rights and civic resentment among the people of Karachi, Hyderabad and other urban areas of Sindh province and that the MQM workers and sympathisers are committing crimes so that they are portrayed as criminals and terrorists. He said work on criminalisation policy was underway before June 19, 1992 but after that it only grew in intensity. While the Haqiqi terrorists were provided a licence to kill the MQM workers, the same one-sided killing of the MQM workers under the supervision of official secret agencies was declared a "fight between two groups" or "factional fighting". Even the extra-judicial killings of innocent MQM workers at the hands of police, Rangers and secret agencies were termed as "police encounters". The world was told that an operation was on against criminals and no extra-judicial killing was underway.

Under the pre-planned policy of criminalisation, the people were made to believe through fed media reports that no terrorism or murders were going on in other parts of the country and only Karachi was burning. For this purpose, murders of personal vendetta and family disputes were termed as "terrorism" and Karachi was portrayed as a city of crimes. While killings and murders in Lahore (the capital of Punjab), a city of far less population than Karachi, are much more in numbers than Karachi, it was never said that there was terrorism going on in Lahore. The Karachi incidents were spiced up in an unusual manner as terrorism so that a justification is produced to launch a large scale State-operation by deploying security forces, imported from Punjab and other provinces, and that the Mohajirs are made a hostage in their own streets, once the democratic order is tucked away and supra-legal and ultra-constitutional actions are taken with impunity.

Altaf Hussain said that the MQM is accused of every criminal activity in Karachi and the reason given for this accusation is that since the MQM is the majority party in Karachi, hence its involvement in these acts of violence is nothing but natural. If we take this assumption as true then the blame for all killings, bomb explosions, sectarian violence and all sorts of terrorism in Punjab lies squarely with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Chief Minister of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif and their Pakistan Muslim League as PML is the majority party in Punjab. But they are never implicated in terrorist cases, the PML is not projected as a terrorist party, because it is serving the Establishment agenda i.e. extermination of Mohajirs.

He said the Establishment, while propagating the policy of criminalisation, claims that Karachi is full of illegal weapons, which should be found through house-to-house searches, falls short of declaring similar action in Punjab where automatic modern weaponry is openly displayed on events like Basant (kite flying festival) and other "cultural" events. Even women indulge in ferocious firing with automatic weapons. Mosques are guarded by kalashnikov-totting gunmen. But it was never said that Punjab is full of weapons. Were those thousands of people killed in Punjab during the last one year, not victims of weapons? Or were they killed by slingshots, Altaf asked.

The MQM leader said that according to a pre-planned scheme, terrorism bogey was raised in Karachi, Hakim Saeed was murdered and Governor's Rule was imposed, Article 245 invoked and Army deployed, thereby not only democracy was slained but also the sanctity of judiciary and the high court was violated by establishing military courts. He said the government used Hakim Saeed's murder to impose Governor's Rule in Sindh, but no action was taken against the murder of known religious scholar and Chairman Ruet-e-Hilal Committee, Maulana Abdullah, the same day. Neither was governor's rule imposed on Punjab. This is all happening because the Establishment wants to project the whole Mohajir community as terrorists, whose mandate should not be accepted. Rather this mandate is being trampled with impunity.

The MQM leaders, elected representatives, office-bearers, workers and sympathisers are being treated as criminals, that is why sixty-year-old Shoaib Bukhari, a senior advocate and MQM's deputy parliamentary leader in the Sindh Assembly has to face over 100 criminal cases. He is being produced in the court of law, handcuffed. Similar fate is of Wakil Ahmad Jamali, a Sindh MPA.

The Establishment is claiming since 1992 that the operation is not against a particular political party but against 72 "Big Fish". But how many of these big fish have been netted so far and which other political party had to face the consequences of this operation, Altaf asked. "Are the members of other parties angels"? He termed it a national tragedy that MQM's elderly and elected representatives are being portrayed as criminals and terrorists, while those who have siphoned off billions of rupees from the nationalised banks and pocketed billions of dollars in armament deals are not accused of anything.

He said the Establishment is once again "unearthing" MQM's so-called "torture cells" which never existed, to defame the party at home and abroad but those existing and internationally acknowledged private jails of feudal oligarchy (jagirdars, sardars and waderas) in Punjab, NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan are not even touched and no operation is launched to unearth them. He further stated that on the pretext of Hakim Saeed Murder, Governor Rule has been imposed and military courts established in Sindh. The Establishment talk of even handed action on merit, but in Punjab, there have been thousands of deaths during last year in sectarian violence and other terrorist activities, why do they not impose governor rule and establish military courts in Punjab? He said that on the pretext of false cases, MQM is being crushed by the use of State brute force, those police and secret agencies' men who have killed innocent people in Karachi are not being brought to book. Were those innocent people not humans? Altaf Hussain asked, "whether murder is of a civilian or a member of the security forces, those are equally murders". And, therefore, if punishment is awarded to civilians, similar punishment must also be awarded to the personnel of the security forces. Since no one is above the law because murder of a man is the murder of mankind.

He said the Establishment has never accepted the Mohajirs' mandate, which they gave to the MQM time and again, though at times the MQM was made a part of the government. But the moment a State operation is launched against the MQM, all those people who gained employment because of MQM are thrown out from the Government departments. This process is on even today, a process, which can easily be called an economic genocide of the Mohajirs.

He said the arrested MQM workers are coerced to admit on national television that they have committed crime after receiving "directions" from London. London is being mentioned only for the reason that the British government is pressurised to shut the MQM's International Secretariat in London and that all the MQM leaders, office-bearers, workers and sympathisers, who are in exile, are evicted and their legal and constitutional struggle against the State suppression is checked.