Karachi on knife-edge after MQM chief arrest

FE Team | Published: June 05, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

PAKISTAN : Supporters of Pakistan\'s Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) party hold photographs of party leader Altaf Hussain as they stage a sit-in calling for his release in Karachi. — AFP

KARACHI, June 4 (agencies): For more than two decades, Altaf Hussain has wielded control of this freewheeling, violent city of 20 million half a world away from his drab London suburb home.
His arrest Tuesday by British police has left Pakistan's biggest city on edge and fuelled questions about the future of his political machine.
The 60-year-old is revered by his fiercely loyal supporters-mainly ethnic Mohajirs who migrated from India at the time of partition, while critics accuse him of running his party as a violent mafia-like organisation.
Party workers appeared to be in a state of shock Wednesday at a protest rally organised on the main thoroughfare of this city and attended by thousands.
Meanwhile: Militants killed four soldiers and wounded three others Wednesday in a cross-border attack on Pakistani checkpoints situated along the troubled frontier with Afghanistan, officials said.