Altaf Hussain: the man turning up heat on Karachi's streets from London suburb

Supporters of Altaf Hussain hold up a poster bearing his image in Karachi in 2013

Officials claim MQM leader effectively declared war on Pakistani state addressing Karachi rally from his home in the UK capital.

Its office is situated next to a chicken grill cafe, a nail bar and a boarded up mock-Tudor pub. But it is from these humble surroundings in London’s Edgware that the fate of Pakistan’s biggest and most febrile city is remotely decided.

Pakistani paramilitary rangers cordon off a street leading to the MQM headquarters in Karachi.

The office is home to the international secretariat of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), Karachi’s pre-eminent political party that Pakistani authorities accused on Tuesday of staging a bloody mass riot.

Its leader is Altaf Hussain, who for the past 24 years has lived in exile in London. Supporters say that he is the undisputed leader of Karachi’s Muhajir community, comprising Urdu speakers who migrated from India to Pakistan during independence in 1947.

Critics accuse Hussain of being a terrorist and fanatic. He has used his base in the UK to dial up and dial down street violence depending on political necessity, they allege.

According to MQM, Pakistan’s establishment has hounded the party for years, with the level of persecution rising since 2013. It says more than 1,500 party workers have been jailed, 66 have been killed extrajudicially and 125 have disappeared. Pakistan’s media, meanwhile, have censored coverage, with Hussain’s face banned from screens since last year.

Speaking from the first-floor London office, Wasay Jalil, a member of MQM’s coordination committee, denied the party was involved in extremism. “We’ve never used British soil for terrorism,” he said. “We always act within peaceful political structures.” UK authorities were aware of Hussain, a longtime British citizen, he said.

Jalil claimed the party began its latest peaceful struggle 10 days ago, when several members went on hunger strike. On Tuesday supporters gathered outside Karachi’s press club to protest against “media bias”. Hussain picked up the phone at his home in London and addressed the crowd, his words broadcast through loudspeakers.

 What happened next is contested. Pakistani officials say Hussain effectively declared war on the state, describing the country as “a cancer” and “the epicentre of terrorism”. Jalil conceded that MQM workers broke into chants of “down with Pakistan” out of frustration, he said, at the brutal tactics employed by local paramilitary forces.