Scotland Yard said it is examining whether a Pakistani political leader incited violence in Karachi when he addressed followers from his north-London base on Monday.
Violence flared in the country’s biggest city on Monday after Altaf Hussain, the leader of the MQM party, who has lived in Edgware for more than 20 years, addressed supporters in the city via telephone calls that were broadcast to his followers.
A spokeswoman told the Guardian that the police are examining Hussain’s speech following “numerous calls from the public” to see if his remarks broke any English laws. She added: “Where evidence of criminal activity is found we will consult with the Crown Prosecution Service,” the spokeswoman added.
The Pakistani authorities say Hussain described the country as a “cancer” and incited his followers to attack two media stations that he accused of bias. But a spokesman for MQM told the Guardian that the violence erupted after the party’s supporters were fired on by police where one person was killed.Hussain has already been under investigation since last summer following previous speeches
The Metropolitan police have been investigating previous speeches made by Hussain, who holds joint British-Pakistani citizenship, since last summer. It is one of three separate investigations by the force into Hussain and other senior members of the MQM who have effectively run a significant portion of Karachi’s political scene from London’s suburbs.
In September 2010, MQM’s deputy leader Dr Imran Farooq was beaten and stabbed to death outside his north London home, triggering a murder investigation that continues to this day. “Detectives from the Met Police Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) are investigating Dr Farooq’s murder and remain committed to putting before the courts those responsible,” the Met spokeswoman told the Guardian.
In the course of the investigation, police raided properties linked to the MQM and found large amounts of cash, leading to a separate money-laundering investigation by fraud specialists. Hussain was arrested as part of the money-laundering investigation in June 2014 and released on bail; five other leaders of the MQM based in London were also arrested and bailed, although bail was cancelled on all six men in February 2016.
A file on the money-laundering investigation was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service to decide whether to charge in April, although no decision has yet been made.
Wasay Jalil, a member of MQM’s coordination committee based in London, said it was not the case that the party was using London as a base to incite violence. “We’ve never used British soil for terrorism,” he told the Guardian on Tuesday. “We always act within peaceful political structures.”
The party says that the MQM has faced growing political persecution in Pakistan, claiming that 66 party activists have been killed extrajudicially and 125 have disappeared since 2013, while 1,500 party workers have been jailed.
On Tuesday afternoon, Hussain apologised for his remarks, blaming “mental stress”. Although Jalil sought to play down rumours of a split in the MQM, a senior party member in Pakistan distanced the party from Hussain’s comments, saying in a press conference the MQM should be run “from Pakistan alone”.
