KARACHI - As we entered the populated area of Azizabad, the power centre of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), we saw barriers erected on the entrance of all streets leading towards Nine Zero, the headquarters of Karachi’s most powerful party.
After taking a U-turn a few away from Makkah Chowk, the roundabout showing the sign of fist, I along with my three fellow journalists stopped the vehicle along a barricade and introduced ourselves as journalists to the personnel standing there to performing their security duty in plain clothes, but without any weapon. Later, a senior leader of MQM told us that these were the volunteers who performed security duties as the party was facing threats for speaking openly against the Taliban.
The MQM workers referred us to the next barricade where the persons in plain clothes had already been informed of our scheduled visit and they let us enter the road leading towards Nine Zero. Then on the next picket, we were asked to get out of the car and we had to walk a few meters in the 20-foot-wide street to reach Begum Khursheed Trust Memorial Hall, named after the mother of MQM chief Altaf Hussain, from where Rabita Committee operates.
Khursheed Memorial Hall is a four-storey building with three entry and exit gates and has a vast area having a lawn as compared to the other houses of the area as each house in the locality has the area of approximately 120 yards.
The area around Nine Zero is neat and clean with carpeted roads unlike other parts of the metropolitan city that has heaps of garbage and faulty traffic signals. While we were walking on foot in the street, we saw posters of Altaf Hussain inscribed with words of APMSO (All Pakistan Muttahida Students Organisation and former All Pakistan Mohajir Students Organisation) on every electricity or telephone poll of the street. Similar kinds of posters were hanging on polls of the main road from where we had entered Azizabad area. Later, we were told that MQM has recently celebrated the foundation day of APMSO, the organisation from where Altaf Hussain started his politics that later became the basis of formation of Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) and came into mainstream politics with the name of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).
At the reception of the Khursheed Memorial Hall, Ahsan Ghauri, a member of the media team of MQM, welcomed us and took us to the main meeting room. After some minutes, Aminul Haq, former MNA and deputy parliamentary leader of MQM in NA as well as member of the party’s CEC, and Shabbir Qaimkhani, former Sindh minister and member of MQM Rabita Committee, joined us.
The MQM leaders were bombarded with tough questions about allegations of extortion and extra-judicial killings, but they maintained their calm and answered with patience.
“This is a misperception in the minds of people of Punjab and Islamabad about the party,” Aminul Haq said, adding that despite all these allegations MQM had won most seats of NA and provincial assembly from Karachi. Aminul Haq accepted that the party was facing allegations of extortion and sack-packed dead bodies and forced voting, but he refuted all these allegations.
“It is true that we collect Fitrana from the party workers, but we have a record of all that and run ambulance service and other programmes for the welfare of the community,” he said. However, both the leaders also avoided to give some answers related to some controversial remarks of Altaf Hussain. Shabbir Ahmed Qaimkhani claimed MQM was the only party that had an internal accountability system as public representatives were answerable not only to the masses but to the party leadership. “Altaf Bhai used to ask sitting ministers to give back the keys of the official vehicles and go back home over their bad performance,” he said.
We were then escorted to the main room of the Rabita Committee from where the party chief speaks to the committee members and issues directions. There are different kinds of speakerphones lying on the table and a number of LED TVs hang on the main wall of the room.
Senior MQM leader Dr Farooq Sattar, MQM Senator Barrister Saif Ali and ex-MNA Dr Abdul Qadir Khanzada welcomed us in the room. “Altaf Bhai is a binding force for us,” Dr Farooq Sattar said. Sattar admitted that the party was facing one of the toughest times in its history and regretted that the party sometimes had to use slogan of Mohajir politics due to some external pressure though it did not want to use it anymore. On the other side of the corridor lies conference room from where party leadership holds press conferences. There are Sindh, Punjab, KP, Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan and other sections located in different rooms of the hall. At the entrance of Begum Khursheed Memorial Hall, there is a public complaint cell of the party. “This cell works round the clock and at least one party MNA or MPA sits here to hear public complaints,” Shabbir Qaimkhani said.
Some party voters, along with the sector in-charge Farhan Hashmi, were present in the complaint cell. As we were standing at the main entrance of the complaint cell, Waqar Hussain Shah, MPA from Karachi, had just come to do his duty in the cell. He walked with us towards the old residence of Altaf Hussain, now called Nine Zero.
After walking a few meters from Khursheed Memorial Hall, we took right turn toward Nine Zero. It is a small 120-yard house like other houses in the locality. There is a kite portrait placed outside the house, the election symbol of MQM. A small drawing room is decorated with old sofas and a four-post simple bed. Ahsan Ghauri told us Altaf Bhai had been meeting with eminent politicians of the country, including Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, in that room before he went into self-exile in 1992. In another room of the house, there is a telephone exchange of the party from where the whole Rabita Committee and other party local leaders remain in coordination with one another. We were informed that Altaf Hussain usually speaks to public outside this house.
The visit of media cell of MQM was very surprising as MQM has state-of-the-art equipment and modern techniques of media monitoring. At Nine Zero, Cyber Communication Department of the party operates in one of the rooms, which deals with the social media. On the first floor of Nine Zero, electronic media monitoring cell of MQM operates with dozens of LED TVs hanging on the walls with big cupboards of DVR (digital video recorder) system.
“We record all the news channels operating in Pakistan round the clock and we have a system which even if we lock this room and go home, the system will automatically work,” a worker of electronic media monitoring wing said. He said they had six months archived data of recording of each channel.
A worker at print media cell said, “We issue morning and evening slugs; morning slugs includes complete monitoring about MQM coverage in national and local dailies and evening slug includes the press releases issued by the party for the day.”
Ghauri informed us that international communications department of MQM deals with foreign media and it also has a separate archives department.
Nine Zero a web of tech & media monitoring systems