Muhajir Province (Movement)

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Muhajir Province
مہاجر صوبہ
Proposed Province
Red (Majority Urdu speaking regions), Yellow (Minority Urdu speaking regions)
Red (Majority Urdu speaking regions), Yellow (Minority Urdu speaking regions)
Country Pakistan
CapitalKarachi
Largest cityKarachi
Population
 (2017)
 • Total16,643,045[1]
DemonymMuhajir
Time zoneUTC+05:00 (PST)
Main Language(s)Urdu
Notable sports teamsKarachi Kings
Districts

The Muhajir Province Movement[2] is a proposed province movement in the Pakistani province of Sindh. This movement is backed by a Muhajir pan-nationalist political and ethnic movement seeking to establish a separate province in Sindh which seeks to represent the Muhajir people of Pakistan.[3][4] It is proposed to consist of Muhajir-majority areas of Sindh which would be independent from Sindh government.

Jinnahpur and Muhajir Sooba

Main article: Jinnahpur

Jinnahpur referred to an alleged plot in Pakistan to form a breakaway autonomous state to serve as a homeland for the Karachi based Urdu-speaking Muhajir community.[5] Mohajirs are immigrants who came to Pakistan from India in the wake of the violence that followed the independence of India in 1947. The alleged name to be given to the proposed breakaway state was "Jinnahpur", named after Mohammed Ali Jinnah. In 1992, the Pakistani military claimed it had found maps of the proposed Jinnahpur state in the offices of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (now renamed Muttahida Qaumi Movement), despite the party's strong denial of the authenticity of the maps. Despite the party's strong commitment to the Pakistani state, at that time government of Nawaz Sharif chose to use it as the basis for the military operation against the MQM, known as Operation Clean-up.[6]In August 2009, two senior military officers at the time (one of them Brigadier Imtiaz Billa) of the operation claimed that the maps had been fabricated.[7] According to them the Jinnahpur maps were false allegations and an attempt to divide the nation. Their stance was immediately challenged by Major (R) Nadeem Dar, then an ISI officer, who claimed to have recovered maps and related documents personally after raiding MQM headquarter and sent them to Major Haroon and Major Nadeem.[8]

Muhajir Sooba

The Muhajir Sooba (literally meaning 'Immigrant Province') is a political movement which seeks to represent the Muhajir people of Sindh.[9][10] This concept floated as a political bargaining tool by the leader of Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Altaf Hussain for the creation of a Muhajir province for the Muhajir-majority areas of Sindh, which would be independent from Sindh government.

History

Origin

In 1954, the Muhajir Politician Mahmud-ul-Haq Usmani proposed the Muhajir Province and demanded Karachi as an separate province for Muhajirs.[11] This idea was later revived by Muhajir nationalist Politician Altaf Hussain the founder and leader of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) which is currently active as an Muttahida Qaumi Movement – London (MQM-L).[12]. Upon the creation of Pakistan in 1947, millions of refugees and migrants from India made Karachi their new home, settling alongside the native Sindhi population. They identified themselves as muhajirs and have since been part of the long process of assimilation into Pakistan’s multiethnic, multilingual, Islamic republic. The political mobilisation of the group has led to the formation of a number of Muhajir parties, the strongest of which remains the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM). Over the years, the Mohajir population and the MQM have evolved, learning to adapt and respond to a social environment that is largely influenced by the volatile relationship between civilian, military and Islamic institutions. This paper traces the nature of Muhajir nationalism from its inception to where it stands today, and explores the shape it could take in the future.[13][14]

Ethnic violences

Main article: MQM Militancy

Over the years, Pashtuns, Punjabis and migrants from Afghanistan and East Pakistan (Bangladesh) settled in Karachi. The increasing population of the city resulted in competition for resources, and the Muhajirs found themselves at repeated odds with the Sindhis, Punjabis and Pashtuns and other ethnic groups of the country.[15] Since 1954 the tensions raised between the Sindhis and Muhajirs over province as both are the main ethnic groups of karachi, the Sindhi nationalists strongly opposed the Muhajir Province movement and in 1988 thousands of Muhajirs killed in Hyderabad, Sindh by Sindhi nationalists for demanding separate province in Sindh. The Altaf Hussain blamed Pakistani establishment and Pakistan's main intelligence agency for orchestrating the massacre he believed that the Sindhi nationalists are sponsored by establishment to suppressed the muhajir province movement, however the government denied the allegations of Altaf and condemned the massacre.[16][17]In the Ayub Khan’s arrival in 1958 set in motion the relative decline of the Muhajirs, especially after the capital of the Pakistan was shifted from Karachi to Islamabad. Khan’s policies about administrative structure infuriated the community and tilted their support towards Fatima Jinnah, against Khan, in the first presidential election in 1964. Thus, Khan’s victory and subsequent clashes between the Muhajirs and Pashtuns in Karachi triggered a sense of alienation among the community.[18] Another major contributing factor behind the political mobilization of MQM among the Muhajirs was a feeling of insecurity due to the mass arrival of weaponry in Karachi during the Soviet-Afghan war and criminal groups proceeding to incite ethnic riots between Pashtuns, Punjabi, Sindhis and Balochs and the Muhajirs throughout the 1980's.[19]

Mystery Movement (2012)

In 2012 there was an unexplained, mysterious, political development in Karachi, and partly in Hyderabad, where a hitherto unknown organisation has started a campaign for the creation of a separate province. It began with some wall chalking (graffiti) on the main thoroughfares for a ‘muhajir suba’.[20]

State operations against MQM for promoting violence against state

Main article: MQM Militancy

1992-94

From 1992 to 1994, the MQM was the target of the Pakistan Army's Operation Clean-up, The period is regarded as the bloodiest period in Karachi's history, with thousands of MQM workers and supporters killed or gone missing.[21][22][23] Although 25 years have passed since the alleged arrest or disappearance of MQM workers, families of the missing people are still hopeful after registering the cases in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.[24] The operation left thousands of Muhajir civilians dead.[25][26] During the operation clean-up there was growing evidence that the Rangers and police were involved in human rights abuses, including beatings, extortion, disappearances, torture and extrajudicial executions of suspected militants in faked encounter killings of Muhajirs.[22] The police and army carried out raids, mass round-ups and siege-and-search operations in pursuit of MQM(A) leaders and militants over the next 30 months, thousands of ordinary MQM supporters and Muhajir were subjected to arbitrary arrest and detention, extrajudicial execution, beatings, torture, extortion and other ill-treatment.[22][27]

1994-96

During tenure of Benazir Bhutto, interior minister General Naseerullah Babar conducted second operation against MQM between 1994 and 1996.[28] On 5 September 1995, 8 MQM supporters were killed and 11 were injured when security forces attacked what the MQM billed as a peaceful protest against abuses by security forces against MQM women workers.[29] Due to serious doubts over credibility of operation due to fake encounters, extra judicial killings and rise of killings in Karachi,[30] Benazir Bhutto's government was dismissed by the then President of Pakistan, Farooq Ahmed Laghari.[31]

Extrajudicial killing of Farooq Dada

On 2 August, Farooq Patni, alias Farooq Dada, and three other MQM workers, Javed Michael, Ghaffar Mada and Hanif Turk, were shot dead by police in an alleged armed "encounter" near the airport when, according to police, they failed to stop and opened fire on the police.[32] Family members, however, claimed that the men had earlier been arrested from their homes. Moreover, another MQM worker, Mohammad Altaf, arrested later on the same day was reportedly identified by Farooq Dada and his three companions when they were brought to Altaf's house by police to help identify him. Witnesses were reported to have seen the four MQM workers at the time of Altaf's arrest; they were at that time reportedly held in shackles.[32]

2015-16 operations

In 2015, a senior policeman, who declined to be named, put the figure of deaths of MQM workers at 1,000, saying a majority of the deaths were extrajudicial killings.[33] Three other serving officials confirmed the assessment.[33] In 2015, the HRCP expressed concern over the rise in extrajudicial killings and lack of transparency about the number of MQM activists picked up or later let off.[34] During Nine Zero raid, MQM worker Waqas Shah was brutally shot down by Ranger's 9mm pistol fire from point blank range. The video evidence released on electronic media confirmed the incident.[35] Farooq Sattar's coordination officer Syed Aftab Ahmed was killed while in the custody of paramilitary forces. Initially the force denied torture and stated that he died of heart attack but it had to accept after social media publicized videos of torture marks on Aftab's body and autopsy report conforming death due to torture.[36][37][38] During the raid on Nine Zero, Syed Waqas Ali Shah was shot by rangers, “Don’t misbehave with the women,” were said to be the 25-year-old Shah's last words to Rangers personnel, who according to eye-witnesses accounts were shoving and pushing women protesting outside the MQM headquarters.[39] As a result of operation, MQM claims 67 of its workers have been extra judicially murdered the paramilitary force while 150 are still missing and more than 5,000 are behind bars. The Amnesty International, US state department, United Nations Human rights commission has published several documents highlighting gross human rights violations during the targeted operation against MQM.[40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48] On 11 March 2015, Pakistan Rangers carried out a raid at Nine Zero, the headquarters of MQM in Nine Zero, Karachi as well as the party’s public secretariat, Khursheed Begum Memorial Hall, recovered small and heavy weapons and arrested over 100+ activists of MQM.[49] In August 2016, after the Altaf Hussain's 22 August hate speech against Pakistan's Establishment leds riots and unrest the Government of Pakistan declared MQM as an proscribed party and military launched crack down on the party leadership and party headquarters in Nine Zero, Karachi was sealed by military and Pakistan Rangers the party's leaders including Farooq Sattar were arrested and disappeared by Pakistan Rangers and intelligence agencies, and most elected parliamentarians in the MQM were forced to disassociate themselves from Altaf Hussain and his party. MQM-L terminated the Farooq Sattar's party membership for party rules violations, Which resulted in him forming his own separate "establishment-sponsored" party faction Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) after release from custody by the Pakistan Rangers.[50] MQM-P claim that it supports the idea of Muhajir Province through peaceful and democratic struggle opposing violence.

Further reading


Category

References

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  2. ^ Zaidi, S. Akbar (2014-01-11). "Karachi as a province". DAWN.COM. Retrieved 2023-07-28.
  3. ^ "Altaf for 'Sindh One' and 'Sindh Two'". Dawn.com. Jan 5, 2014. Retrieved 26 September 2014.
  4. ^ Z, Ali (January 4, 2014). "New province: Altaf Hussain kicks up a firestorm". The Express Tribune. Retrieved 26 September 2014.
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