This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/04/world/asia/pakistani-political-leader-arrested-in-london.html

The article has changed 8 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 3 Version 4
Inquiry Snares Altaf Hussein, Exiled M.Q.M. Chief Inquiry Snares Altaf Hussein, Exiled M.Q.M. Chief
(about 5 hours later)
LONDON — The British police arrested Altaf Hussain, the leader of a powerful Pakistani political party, on suspicion of money laundering on Tuesday, causing a panicked reaction in Karachi, where businesses closed and residents rushed home fearing possible political violence. LONDON — When British police officers mounted a dawn raid on a calm London suburb on Tuesday, with orders to arrest the powerful Pakistani political boss Altaf Hussain, the reverberations were felt most intensely 4,000 miles away in the port city of Karachi.
Mr. Hussain was arrested at his home in Edgware in Northwest London early Tuesday as the police began searching the house, said Muhammad Anwar, a senior London-based official with his party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, or M.Q.M. His aides said Mr. Hussain was in too poor of health to be moved, but there news reports later saying that he had been taken to police headquarters for questioning. Businesses hastily shuttered, trains stopped and workers raced home, clogging the streets in chaotic traffic jams, amid panic that the arrest of Mr. Hussain, a charismatic figure who through the Muttahida Qaumi Movement has controlled Karachi from his exile in England for two decades, would result in an eruption of political bloodshed.
News of the arrest spread rapidly in Karachi, the capital of Sindh Province and a city of 20 million that Mr. Hussain’s party has dominated for nearly three decades through a combination of electoral politics and street violence. The sight of a sprawling megalopolis of 20 million people so visibly girding itself for trouble was a measure of the power that Mr. Hussain has come to wield over Karachi, a vital economic hub divided by violent factional competition, threatened by Taliban infiltration, and suddenly seized by widespread trepidation over what will happen now that Mr. Hussain is in the custody of London’s Metropolitan Police.
Shops closed immediately, and tens of thousands of people rushed home, causing long traffic jams on several major streets. The Karachi Stock Exchange initially dropped 780 points — just over 2 percent of its value — although it later recovered somewhat. Pakistani television news channels reported sporadic gunfire in parts of Karachi and Hyderabad, another large city in Sindh where the M.Q.M. enjoys strong support. The stations reported that at least six vehicles were burned by protesters. “This is potentially very serious,” said Abbas Nasir, a former editor of the Pakistani newspaper Dawn. “The removal of someone as powerful as Altaf Hussain is always going to leave a vacuum. His party is in for a challenging time.”
“There’s an environment of fear and uncertainty,” said Ismail Lalpuria, general secretary of the Sindh Traders’ Association. The British move against Mr. Hussain is the culmination of a criminal investigation that started with the murder of a former member of the M.Q.M. near the party’s London offices in September 2010, and that has since broadened into an inquiry that has targeted Mr. Hussain’s personal finances.
The British diplomatic mission in Karachi said it was closing temporarily, while senior Karachi police officials held an emergency meeting to discuss the security situation. Over the past 18 months, the Metropolitan Police have raided Mr. Hussain’s house and offices in London, impounded about $600,000 in cash and a quantity of jewelry, and arrested a nephew who worked as his personal assistant.
“There is a visible state of panic,” Inspector Atiq Ahmed Sheikh, a police spokesman, said in reference to the chaotic scenes on the roads. “I’ve also seen reports of gunfire, but no serious incident has been reported as yet.” Mr. Hussain, however, had avoided arrest until Tuesday morning. A police spokeswoman declined to confirm his identity — he will only be named if state prosecutors decide to charge him with a crime — but did confirm that a 60-year-old man was being questioned on suspicion of money laundering.
Hospital emergency rooms across the city girded for possible violence, but as evening fell, most of the city was calm. Dr. Seemin Jamali, at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center, said that three people had been admitted with gunshot wounds — a relatively low toll in a city where political violence is a daily occurrence. On Tuesday evening, Pakistani political operatives gathered at Southwark police station in central London where Mr. Hussain, who is said to be in poor health, was being held by the police. And at the party’s heavily guarded headquarters in Karachi, senior officials tried to put a brave face on the M.Q.M.'s gravest crisis in decades.
Shazaf Fatima Haider, a novelist, described fraught scenes at a fuel station in the upscale Clifton neighborhood, which is home to several diplomatic missions, where arguments erupted between motorists and pedestrians lined up to buy gasoline. “Everyone was a little hysterical,” she said. “At first people were good-humored but then they got angry when someone broke the line.” Clearly playing for time, some party officials initially claimed that reports of Mr. Hussain’s arrest were a rumor. Later others claimed, inaccurately, that he was still at his London home and had been invited by the police to an interview. Later, senior leaders resorted to angry speeches that described the charges as a conspiracy against their beloved leader.
Adeel Sattar, a spokesman for the Railways Ministry, said incoming and outgoing trains were suspended for three hours because of security concerns in Karachi, but there was no indefinite suspension. One image circulating on the Internet depicted a man with bloodied hands ripping open his own chest to reveal a picture of Mr. Hussain. “Only Altaf Till Death,” read the slogan.
M.Q.M. supporters demonstrated outside the party’s Karachi headquarters, waving posters of Mr. Hussain and listening to party anthems. “What the Metropolitan Police is doing is incomprehensible to us,” said Dr. Farooq Sattar, a senior leader, in an address to the crowd. “Our priority is Altaf Hussain’s health.” “What the Metropolitan Police is doing is incomprehensible to us,” said Dr. Farooq Sattar, a senior leader, in an address to a Karachi crowd.
In a mass text message, one M.Q.M. lawmaker, Syed Ali Raza Abidi, advised supporters to ignore what he described as “rumors” of Mr. Hussain’s arrest, which he dismissed as a “smokescreen” to divert attention from the federal budget that was being presented to the lower house of Parliament in Islamabad on Tuesday. Despite the shows of loyalty, the M.Q.M. is likely to face severe challenges. Few doubt that Mr. Hussain’s arrest will test the internal unity of the party, which represents Mohajirs, the term for the mainly Urdu-speaking Muslims whose families moved to Pakistan after the partition from India in 1947 and who make up a sizable portion of the population in Karachi.
In Islamabad, an aide to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif described Mr. Sharif’s reaction to the news as “somber” and said he was seeking further details from Pakistani diplomats in London. For over a decade, the M.Q.M. has controlled a bloc of about 20 parliamentary seats in Karachi that has won the party a place in successive coalition governments. But it also exercises influence through a network of heavily armed street gangs that engage in violent rivalry with the party’s political opponents, mostly from other ethnic groups.
Mr. Hussain’s arrest is likely to test the internal unity of the M.Q.M., which represents mohajirs, the term for the mainly Urdu-speaking Muslims whose families moved to Pakistan after the partition from India in 1947 and who make up a sizable proportion of the population in Karachi. Pakistani news reports said the party leadership was to hold an emergency meeting later on Tuesday to discuss the crisis. Mr. Hussain, who has not set foot in Pakistan since he fled in 1991, exercises his power by summoning party subordinates to meetings in London, and by addressing giant street rallies in Karachi, often with tens of thousands of supporters, by telephone and video conference.
The M.Q.M. controls most of the parliamentary seats for Karachi, and has been a part of several coalition governments. But it also exercises influence through a network of heavily armed street gangs that operate in some neighborhoods. But as the British police have closed in on Mr. Hussain in recent months, his party has showed signs of internal strains. Some leaders have left Pakistan after falling out with Mr. Hussain, including Syed Mustafa Kamal, a former mayor of Karachi.
The party is dominated by Mr. Hussain, a charismatic figure who summons his party subordinates to meetings in London and addresses giant street rallies in Karachi, often with tens of thousands of supporters, by telephone and video conference. The worry now is that if British prosecutors proceed with a money-laundering trial, the party, which is rooted in Mr. Hussain’s personality cult, could fall apart, possibly bringing intense violence to the streets of Karachi.
Mr. Hussain has not returned to Pakistan since he established himself in London in 1992. He obtained a British passport in 2002. But in recent weeks, he has been frantically requesting a Pakistani passport from officials at the High Commission in London, according to Pakistani officials. “The party is led by young people, some of whom were only toddlers when Altaf Hussain went into exile,” said Mr. Nasir, the former editor. “If they can’t hold the party together, one could see dozens of fiefs emerging in Karachi, making an already terrible law and order situation even worse.”
The charges against Mr. Hussain stem from a police investigation into the death of Imran Farooq, a former party loyalist who was stabbed to death outside his home near Mr. Hussain’s office in Edgware in 2010. The British charges against Mr. Hussain stem from a police investigation into the stabbing death of Imran Farooq outside his London home in 2010.
Mr. Farooq had once been a close associate of Mr. Hussain’s, who publicly mourned his passing. But the two men had fallen out before his death, and the police investigation started to close in on Mr. Hussain and his associates. Mr. Farooq had once been a party loyalist and close associate of Mr. Hussain, but the two men fell out before his death. The police investigation quickly focused on Mr. Hussain and his party.
The police raided Mr. Hussain’s office in December 2012 and his house in June 2013, impounding about $600,000 in cash and arresting Iftikhar Hussain, a nephew of Mr. Hussain’s who worked as a personal assistant. This spring, British officials asked Pakistan for access to two Pakistani men linked to Mr. Farooq’s death, and who are believed to be in the custody of the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, the country’s top military intelligence agency.
This spring, British officials asked Pakistan’s interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali, for access to two Pakistani men linked to the death of Mr. Farooq. Pakistani officials said the two men were believed to be in the custody of the ISI, the country’s top military intelligence agency. That investigation is troubling for Mr. Hussain’s party, but it is a broadened inquiry into his personal finances that have caused the recent trouble. Police officials have said they are examining the sources of the money that pays for Mr. Hussain’s lifestyle in London, and whether he has paid tax on it.
Scotland Yard named the two men and published their photographs last week, apparently in a bid to pressure the Pakistani authorities to hand them over. They were identified as Moshin Ali Syed, 29, and Muhammad Kashif Khan Kamran, 34. Both men were in London at the time of Mr. Farooq’s death and flew to Pakistan that night.
The investigation brought police scrutiny of Mr. Hussain’s finances in London. Mr. Hussain has considerable living expenses in London — his house is guarded by a private security team including former soldiers from the British Army — and his party officials have scrambled to explain the sources of his funding.
One businessman told The New York Times on the condition of anonymity that after he had donated $25,000 to the M.Q.M., he was asked by party officials to sign a statement saying that he had donated $500,000.One businessman told The New York Times on the condition of anonymity that after he had donated $25,000 to the M.Q.M., he was asked by party officials to sign a statement saying that he had donated $500,000.
In recent weeks, Mr. Hussain has apparently been fearing the worst. He frantically requested a new Pakistani passport from officials at the Pakistani High Commission in London, according to Pakistan officials.
In the coming days, Karachi residents will be anxiously waiting to see whether Mr. Hussain will face criminal charges, and how his troubled party will react. So, too, will the national government in Islamabad.
In a statement issued Tuesday evening, the office of the Pakistani prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, said that it had directed the government of Sindh Province to step up security in Karachi, and that it was ready to provide “all kinds of legal and moral support” to Mr. Hussain.