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One businessman told The New York Times, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, that after he had donated $25,000 to the M.Q.M., he was asked by party officials to sign a statement saying he had donated $500,000.
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, through his Muttahida Qaumi Movement party, has come to wield over Karachi — a vital economic hub long divided by violent factional competition, more recently threatened by Taliban infiltration, and suddenly seized by trepidation over what will happen now that Mr. Hussain is in the custody of London’s Metropolitan Police.
The British move against Mr. Hussain is the culmination of a criminal investigation that started with the murder of a former M.Q.M. official near the party’s London offices in September 2010, and has since broadened into an inquiry that has targeted Mr. Hussain’s personal finances.
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.
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.
“What the Metropolitan Police is doing is incomprehensible to us,” Farooq Sattar, a senior leader, said to a Karachi crowd.
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.
But as the British police have closed in on him in recent months, his organization 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 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.
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 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.
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.
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 source of the money that pays for Mr. Hussain’s lifestyle in London, and whether he has paid tax on it.
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, through his Muttahida Qaumi Movement party, has come to wield over Karachi — a vital economic hub long divided by violent factional competition, more recently threatened by Taliban infiltration, and suddenly seized by trepidation over what will happen now that Mr. Hussain is in the custody of London’s Metropolitan Police.
The British move against Mr. Hussain is the culmination of a criminal investigation that started with the murder of a former M.Q.M. official near the party’s London offices in September 2010, and has since broadened into an inquiry that has targeted Mr. Hussain’s personal finances.
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.
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.
“What the Metropolitan Police is doing is incomprehensible to us,” Farooq Sattar, a senior leader, said to a Karachi crowd.
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.
But as the British police have closed in on him in recent months, his organization 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 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.
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 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.
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.
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 source of the money that pays for Mr. Hussain’s lifestyle in London, and whether he has paid tax on it.
