PESHAWAR: Awami National Party (ANP) Chief Asfandyar Wali Wednesday said many issues have already been resolved except for the issue of law and order, adding Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) would have to admit the fact that Karachi belongs to all (Pakistanis). “It is our contention that war cannot be a solution to any problem and I am ready to hold talks with anyone only if they accept writ of the government and condemn terrorism,” he said while addressing a program on the occasion of death anniversary of Khan Abdul Ghafar and Abdul Wali Khan. He urged MQM to admit the fact that Karachi belongs to all (Pakistanis). “Pakhtoons are a reality which must be recognized,” he added. Asfandyar Wali said the (law and order) problem of Karachi would have to be resolved only through negotiations. REFERENCE: Asfandyar wants MQM to admit Karachi belongs to all Updated at 2030 PST Wednesday, January 26, 2011 http://www.thenews.com.pk/NewsDetail.aspx?ID=10132 Asfandyar Wali Khan Capital Talk (11th June 2009) 1
Asfandyar Wali Khan Capital Talk (11th June... by SalimJanMazari
Asfandyar Wali Khan Capital Talk (11th June 2009) 2
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Asfandyar Wali Khan Capital Talk (11th June 2009) 3
Asfandyar Wali Khan Capital Talk (11th June... by SalimJanMazari
WAY BACK IN THE YEAR 2000 (From MQM Website)
"QUOTE"
MQM’S RECEPTION IN THE HONOUR OF ASFAND YAR WALI, PRESIDENT ANP. Karachi, 5th Feb, staff reporter. (Daily Amn) Today, a reception dinner was hosted by the Muttahida Quami Movement at Nine Zero, the residence of Mr. Altaf Hussain, in the honour of Mr. Asfand Yar Wali, the President of Awami National Party. Mr. Asfand Yar Wali, the Central President of ANP arrived at Nine Zero at around 11.30 a.m. He was given a warm welcome by Senator Aftab Ahmed Sheikh and Senator Nasreen Jalil, Deputy Convenors of MQM. Talks between the leaders of both the parties continued for about one and a half hours. From ANP, Mr. Asfand Yar Wali; President, Mr. Rana Gul Afridi; Vice President, Mr. Ameen Khatak; Central Secretary, Mr. Orangzaib Bonzai; Central Finance Secretary, Mr. Sultan Mando Khail; Deputy General Secretary Sindh and other Provincial leaders participated in the meeting. While from the MQM Senator Aftab Ahmed Sheikh, Senator Nasreen Jalil and Senator Mustafa Kamal along with other Haq Parast Members of National and Provincial Assembly were present. Leaders of both the parties discussed the present political situation in the country, NAB Ordinance, Human Rights Violations in Sindh, Transfer of Powers to lower level, PCO and other issues. Courtesy Daily Amn
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WAY BACK IN 1995 (Courtesy Daily Dawn)
PESHAWAR, July 17: Awami National Party (ANP) has again expressed dissatisfaction over the government policies, and resolved that unless it is removed, the country could not be steered out of present predicament. The Deputy Secretary General of the ANP, Qazi Mohammed Anwar, a dissident of the PPP and a former advocate general of the NWFP, at a Press conference here on Monday released decisions taken at ANP's Central Committee's meeting held under the president ship of the party's chief, Mohammed Ajmal Khattak, at Rawalpindi on Friday last. Replying to a question regarding MQM's demand for a separate province, Qazi claimed that the MQM chief, Altaf Hussain had given a written assurance to the ANP that his party would never demand for the division of Sindh and termed it a propaganda by the government to portray MQM's negative impression to achieve its 'nefarious designs'. REFERENCE: No demand for separate province, Altaf assures ANP *From A Correspondent DAWN WIRE SERVICE Week Ending : 20 July, 1995 Issue: 01/28 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/1995/20Jly95.html
Asfandyar Wali Khan with Mazhar Abbas (Do Tok ARY 9-1-2011)Asfandyar Wali Khan with Mazhar Abbas (Do Tok... by SalimJanMazari
ARY Do Tok -- 9th January 2011 Asfandyar Wali Khan (ANP) Interview Part 1
URL: http://youtu.be/1cj5zc6vUDI
KARACHI: City Nazim Mustafa Kamal considers ethnic Pushtun a “threat” to Karachi and believes that they are plotting to take over the city. These opinions came to light in an interview with National Public Radio’s Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep who is in Karachi for their ‘Urban Frontier’ series. Daily Times reproduces the story, ‘Karachi’s Growth Fuels Demand for Illegal Housing’: Karachi is one of the world’s most populous cities and getting more crowded all the time. New neighborhoods are being built as quickly as people can pour the concrete. Near the farthest reaches of the Pakistani city, a cement mixer hums and spins in a dusty lot. A workman drops some of the concrete into a wheelbarrow. He then dumps that load into a metal frame and pulls down a handle. A steel mold stamps out eight concrete blocks for one more Karachi home. Many of these neighborhoods are built illegally on vacant land. Millions of people find homes this way. They generate an entire off-the-books economy. A few houses are under construction on this barren patch of desert. An Urdu-language banner advertises a model home for the equivalent of $5,000. A look inside one of the houses reveals a two-bedroom home with a tile-floor washroom. Before long, hundreds of houses likely will squeeze onto this dusty parcel of land in the desert. They’re built of a few simple materials, most of which can be purchased from a single dealer nearby. You could think of it as a sort of extralegal Home Depot. What it’s called locally is a “thalla,” and the boss is called the “thallawalla.” The boss of this thalla is named Wahab Khan, and he was dropping off a truckload of concrete blocks from his store. Khan is a newcomer to Karachi. He hails from northern Pakistan, in the tribal areas near the border. Half his family still lives there. Two years ago, he joined the other half of the family as they moved to the city. Now, he rents a tiny patch of dirt by the road, where he has set up a cement mixer. Khan’s employees are rural men who came to Karachi just a few months ago. They live under a little thatch roof a few feet from the cement mixer. The concrete blocks cost the equivalent of 14 cents each. A bag of mortar costs about $4. Throw in some concrete roofing material, hire some workers for about $3 a day, and you’re on your way to building and selling a house. Because most locals have no money saved, everything is sold on credit. The electricity, at least, is free. Khan demonstrates how nearby power lines are tapped and how those taps are temporarily removed when government officials visit. When asked about the danger of using hooks to tap into the lines illegally, he says, “What can we do? We have no choice.” Because the whole system is outside the law, builders here say they also have no choice in another matter. They say that police, who have a way of dropping by, will threaten to tear down an illegal house unless they’re paid a few dollars. Occasionally, a whole construction crew will be thrown in jail. It takes a couple hundred dollars to get them out. The provincial police chief, Inspector-General Muhammad Shoaib Suddle, was not surprised to hear the claims that his men take protection money. “Of course we all understand that without protection, these things cannot prosper,” he says. The inspector-general says he recently suspended three mid-level officers for their alleged involvement in land deals. It’s widely assumed that corrupt officials play a role in most of these deals. The illegal housing system in Karachi has its defenders. A leading urban planner says millions of poor people who otherwise might be homeless find shelter this way. Still, the new settlements have caused some anxiety. Many of Karachi’s new arrivals have come from the north — from the area bordering Afghanistan, a region that supports the Taliban. Karachi’s mayor, Syed Mustafa Kamal, considers these ethnic Pashtuns a threat. In his eyes, they are plotting to take over the city. “These Pashtuns means like fundamentalist — religiously fundamentalist, religiously extremist,” Kamal says. “They are coming in. When it comes to ethnicity, when it comes to Islam they all are ... the same.” The mayor gives a tour of the area, driving past squatter neighborhoods and Islamic schools. He passes the area where the journalist Daniel Pearl was found slain. And he points out the window at a bearded man. “The man who’s coming in front of you ... look at him, look at his face,” Kamal says. The mayor says he is convinced that Pashtuns are planning the locations of the illegal housing settlements. He says they are choosing strategic spots that block his own plans for the city. “It’s a very strategic location, you see?” Kamal asks. “The superhighway is there. They can control the whole highway. ... They had a master plan before me. And they definitely have a master plan.” Speaking with several residents of the city’s new settlements, it’s clear that not all are Pashtuns. And they seemed to have no master plan beyond their next meal. Two of the first residents in the desert neighborhood were outside on their knees cutting firewood. They hacked it out of scraggly bushes they’d found. Shinaz Begum and Razia Begum live side by side with their families. Between them, they have 16 children, none of whom goes to school. Their husbands are a fisherman and a fruit-drink vendor. Both women work cleaning houses, and they each earn about 2,500 Pakistani rupees per month, equivalent to $37. The monthly installment on each of their houses is 2,000 rupees, or just under $30. Look at our children’s faces, they say. Don’t you think they’re underfed? Even so, the women say their precarious existence on this sandy lot in Karachi is better than their past circumstances. REFERENCE: Pashtuns are plotting to take over Karachi, Kamal tells NPR Daily Times Monitor Friday, June 06, 2008 http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008\06\06\story_6-6-2008_pg12_1
ARY Do Tok -- 9th January 2011 Asfandyar Wali Khan (ANP) Interview Part 2
URL: http://youtu.be/eFRdQO-b5nY
* Fact sheet says party destructive instrument in Altaf Hussain’s hands * Govt obligated to explain who turned Karachi into exclusive property Staff Report - ISLAMABAD: Is the MQM a political group or a gang of terrorists, questions a joint investigation report prepared by intelligence and security agencies of the country into the targeted killings and lawlessness in Karachi. The report framed by the ISI, Interior Ministry, IB, Sindh Police, Special Branch and Pakistan Rangers in May 2009 was formally presented to the Senate chairman on Tuesday by ANP Information Secretary Zahid Khan. “Who are these deserting rats, what do they want, how do they treat places like Kashmir, Pakistan and Karachi, why do they kill, why do they promise to send dead bodies, whom do they serve by heightening linguistic feelings, why do they target transformers and leave people to roast in heat, why do they burn transport facilities, why do they target security personnel, why do they torture people and pump bullets into public servants,” questions the 64-page report. “Why did their (MQM) bullets take lives of SHOs Bahadur Ali and Imdad Khatian, DSP Bashir Ahmed Noorani, five relatives of DSP Nisar Khawaja, DSP Tanoli, SDM Muhammad Nawaz Khushk, journalist Muhammad Salahuddin, Azim Ahmed Tariq, Zohair Akram Nadeem, Pir Pagaro’s son-in-law Salim Malik, KESC Chairman Malik Shahid Hamid? And how a renowned scholar, chairman of the Hamdard Foundation and ex-Sindh governor Hakim Muhammad Saeed was killed,” the report further asks. “It is a destructive instrument in the hands of its highly whimsical supremo, the one and only Altaf Hussain,” says the fact sheet on the MQM. Exclusive property: The report said the government was obligated to explain who had turned Karachi, its citizens, its hospitals, parks, roads and avenues, storage houses, police stations and assembly houses into exclusive property; who were the people who never started a single development project in Karachi but did every thing to destroy the Karachi Municipal Corporation by controlling it during 1987-92 and the provincial government during 1990-92. The report also mentions terrorism in Karachi on “Hitler’s footsteps”, “anti-state and anti-media activities of the MQM”, “its Indian connection” and the economical damage due to the party’s forced strikes. “But all this will require a review of the thoughts propagated by Hitler 65 years ago and the resemblance that Altaf has with the Nazi leader,” it added. “The party’s first major action against political rivals came in the Pakistan Steel Mills in 1990 when a number of its men were kidnapped. They were taken to torture cells in Landhi and Korangi. Since then torture and murder of army officers, navy functionaries and a whole range of other people has become a routine,” said the report. It added that the government has repeatedly asked the MQM to close its training camps in India and call back Javed Langhra and others to the country. “Altaf and his party responded that levelling such allegations against the party was not only a crime but also a violation of the security of the country,” the report added. MQM spokesman Wasay Jalil was unavailable for comment when Daily Times tried to contact him. REFERENCE: MQM a political group or gang of terrorists, asks intel report Wednesday, September 29, 2010 http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\09\29\story_29-9-2010_pg7_21 ARY Do Tok -- 9th January 2011 Asfandyar Wali Khan (ANP) Interview Part 3
URL: http://youtu.be/frKrH839qyY
KARACHI, Dec 13 Every year December 14 reopens the old wounds of Fakhar Sheikh and his family. As he observes the 22nd death anniversary of his father and elder brother who were killed with dozens of other innocent people in 1986, the ghosts of the Aligarh massacre continue to haunt the collective socio-political conscience of Karachiites with renewed fears of ethnic riots plaguing the city. “We can`t forget that day but this year violence on the same lines just weeks before December 14 left my family in dread of the repeat of the deadly episode,” he says, sitting on the rooftop of his Aligarh Colony home, which was stormed by dozens of armed men in broad daylight on Dec 14, 1986. As a teenaged boy, he was shocked and fell into a coma for more than a month on seeing his father, Shamsuddin Sheikh, being killed by the armed men, who also pumped 17 bullets into his 28-year-old brother, The grieving children of Qamaruddin Sheikh look at their father`s photo.—White Star - Qamaruddin Sheikh, who died after years of treatment, leaving a widow and two children. Twenty-two years after the tragedy, Fakhar is taking care of his own and the deceased brother`s families in the same house in Aligarh Colony, which is in Orangi No 2. He has reason to believe that an attempt was made to divide the city along ethnic lines 20 years ago. He feels certain that such divisive attempts are still being made. “We firmly believe that in Karachi ethnicity is not a reality,” says Fakhar. “But for the last more than a month we have been unable to convince ourselves and family members as there have been rumours that after Eid terror would return more forcefully. It`s the responsibility of the government to build the people`s confidence.” Most Karachiites that this reporter spoke to agree with Fakhar that the city has no major ethnic faultlines that could cause the kind of violence that ravaged Karachi in the 1980s. The administration also appears convinced that the recent spate of violence was more due to the “illegal stakes of some forces in land and businesses” than any serious ethnic strife. “The government is well aware of the situation and reality,” says Shazia Marri, Sindh`s information minister. “Members in the assembly raised the issue and our home department is working to uncover the reasons behind the recent violence, which in any case was not on ethnic grounds.” She says Karachi is a vibrant city and home to more than 15 million people from different backgrounds, sects and languages. Ms Marri feels confident that ethnicity is not an issue of the country`s business capital and the recently announced judicial inquiry will expose the elements and motives behind the fresh violence. “So we should move forward rather than recalling the horror of Aligarh massacre, which we believe had no reason to happen. Since the government is actively involved in the reconciliation efforts, fears of ethnicity in Karachi have no basis.” Since almost every political party, having existence and organisational structure in Karachi, agrees to Ms Marri`s viewpoint that ethnicity has no roots in the metropolis, the victims of the Aligarh Colony tragedy are unable to understand the still uncovered `conspiracy` which succeeded to a large extent and gave birth to the politics of hatred. Dark memories of Rukhsana Jabin, living in her Gulfamabad house – a society of hardly 2,500 people just a few yards from Aligarh Colony — demand courage to peep into the history of this hatred. As an intermediate student, she went through the city`s arguably most terrible tragedy, which took her mother Sabira Khatoon`s life and caused paralysis to her maternal uncle, Zahoor Ahmed. Rukhsana stammers every time she tries to share the fact that the elders of the family first `gathered the pieces` of her mother`s body before burying it in the Paposh Nagar graveyard. Her mother was hacked to death as she tried to protect her elder brother. “That day (December 14, 1986) she (Sabira Khatoon) was at our Mamoon`s (Zahoor Ahmed) home, which is a few streets from ours, when the area was stormed by men carrying guns, axes, knives, sticks and everything that could hurt,” she says. “When they entered Mamoon`s home, he with my mother resisted. They first killed my mother and then brutally tortured Mamoon. The marauders left the home believing that both had died.” Though he escaped death in 1986, Zahoor Ahmed has been unable to live a normal life for the last 22 years. He has almost lost the ability to speak and cannot move about without assistance. Parties having the largest political stakes in Karachi see a conspiracy behind the Aligarh Colony incident but do not apprehend that such episodes may happen again. “There are several faultlines in this city,” says Haider Abbas Rizvi, a leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which emerged as the single largest party in Karachi after a series of violent incidents of 1986. “These can be seen on ethnic grounds and sectarian grounds but we believe that in 1986 the parties at that time didn`t trust in coexistence, which led to disharmony and deadly violence. For the Aligarh massacre, a conspiracy was hatched by some forces which wanted to demoralise the true democratic struggle.” Mr Rizvi, who is also the deputy parliamentary leader of the MQM in the National Assembly, gives credit to the government and the political parties for jointly helping restrict the violence to a few localities. However, his party`s political rivals but partners in the coalition government think that the MQM being the political force with the heaviest mandate from the city needs to do more for confidence building of the people from different ethnic backgrounds. “After the fresh wave of violence hundreds of people abandoned their businesses for fear of life while properties of dozens of people from upcountry were damaged badly in the mainstream residential areas,” says Amin Khattak, a leader of the Awami National Party. “Now they don`t dare return and this would not spread harmony. Since these localities are considered the MQM`s strongholds, the party needs to take a step forward and help reopen the poor people`s businesses.” He also claims that the Aligarh massacre was staged under the patronage of the establishment when innocent people were killed on ethnic grounds indiscriminately, which sparked such a fire of hatred in the metropolis that has not yet died out. “But this time the government machinery moved faster than in 1986 and political forces showed more maturity. Such an attitude and approach, we hope, will prevent such incidents in the future.” REFERENCE: Ghosts of 1986 massacre haunt Aligarh Colony residents By Imran Ayub From NewsPaper December 14, 2008 http://archives.dawn.com/archives/104843
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