Frontier Post: 29 November 1998

PM using ‘Sindh card’ for trade with India: Altaf

PESHAWAR - Altaf Hussain, the supreme leader of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), has accused Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of having "accepted India’s hegemony" by agreeing to sign both the CTBT and FMCT.

In a telephonic interview from his London offices with The Frontier Post Saturday, Altaf said Sharif had entered a "secret" deal with Clinton administration to endorse the two nuclear control treaties.

He said the agreement to sign these treaties was tantamount to accepting Indian hegemony, to which Nawaz Sharif had already "secretly acquiesced".

Altaf said one result of this strategy would be the decline in the importance of the armed forces, which Sharif intended to achieve by maligning the name of the army, as it was being done in Karachi where the army "has been called out to clash with innocent civilians".

"The powers of the police which are being given to the army now would further earn a bad name for the army besides distancing it from the civilian population", he said, adding that this would also harm the professional competence of the armed forces.

"Nawaz Sharif wants to get rid of the army so that he can become the king of Pakistan, and spread the Ittefaq network across the entire Pakistan and India". Altaf said.

He said Sharif’s actual interest was to extend his family business, and in this connection his (Sharif’s) son had recently conducted a "secret" tour of India.

"Actually Nawaz Sharif himself wants to become the Asia’s biggest tiger", he said, "he has reserved the election symbol of his party for himself and for the ittefaq group".

Altaf Hussain disclosed that Nawaz Sharif’s latest business venture was the launching of a modern passenger bus service from Lahore, whose purpose was to "ensure" the Sharif family’s control over transport sector too, just as it had control over other sectors of economy, such as steel.

Altaf Hussain praised both the people and the armed forces of Pakistan as "honorable and sincere"", saying that the two would be together in foiling the conspiracies being hatched by Nawaz Sharif.

He said Nawaz Sharif was implementing an agenda which was primarily based on the weakening of the armed forces, and he was working day and night to achieve this end.

Altaf Hussain called upon all the people loyal to the country to join hands with each other in an effort to get rid of Nawaz Sharif. "It will be a hard struggle, but the unholy intentions of the present head of our government must be checked at every price", he said.