The Indian government funded Pakistan’s MQM party, party officials told the U.K. authorities who are investigating the MQM for money laundering.
Quoting “an authoritative Pakistani source” the BBC reports that India trained “hundreds of MQM militants over the last 10 years.” The officer claimed that the militants were trained in explosives, weapons and sabotage over the last 10 years in camps in north and northeast India. Prior to 2005-06 the training was given to smaller numbers of mid-ranking MQM followers. “More recently greater numbers of more junior party members have been trained,” BBC quotes the officer as saying.
In response to the claims of Indian funding, the British High Commission in London told the BBC: “The shortcomings of governance cannot be rationalised by blaming neighbours.” The allegations, according to the BBC, are not new. In April Rao Anwar, a senior Karachi police officer said that two arrested MQM militants claimed they had been trained in India, and even gave details on how the two men went to India via Thailand to be trained by RAW.
The MQM has been under the police scanner since 2010 following the stabbing to death of Imran Farooq, a senior party leader outside his home in north London. The MQM’s controversial leader Altaf Hussain has been in self-imposed exile in Lon don for the last 20 years. Mr. Hussain has a British passport. His arrest in June last year on charges of money laundering by the Met police led to violent protests in Karachi, a city that is the base of the MQM. The party claims to represent the Mojahirs — Urdu-speaking Muslims who migrated from India to Pakistan after Partition. They demand greater rights for the community within the governing framework in Pakistan.
Calls to the MQM headquarters in London for a reaction to the claims met with no response.
