In a significant development, two masked individuals attempted to force their way into the London residence of Altaf Hussain, founder of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), located in Mill Hill near Edgware. The assailants reportedly jumped over the front gate of the property and tried to gain entry by damaging the main door and a window.
Hussain, who was inside his ground-floor bedroom at the time, stated that the men appeared to be trained and were armed. They fled the scene after the security alarm was triggered. Following the incident, MQM activists promptly alerted the Metropolitan Police, who responded quickly, conducted forensic examinations, and initiated an investigation.
The MQM coordination committee has urged British authorities to carry out a thorough and transparent inquiry to identify the two masked men and determine the circumstances and parties responsible for the attack.
Altaf Hussain, aged 73, established the MQM, initially known as the Mohajir Qaumi Movement, after co-founding the All-Pakistan Mohajir Students Organisation with Azeem Ahmed Tariq at the University of Karachi in 1978. The party became a dominant political force in urban Sindh, winning the 1988 general election in those areas and becoming Pakistan’s third-largest political party.
Hussain went into exile in the early 1990s amid a government operation against the MQM in Karachi and has managed the party from London since then. In August 2016, following a controversial speech by Hussain, Pakistani authorities launched a crackdown on the MQM, sealing its Karachi headquarters and Hussain’s residence in Azizabad. Subsequently, party leaders in Pakistan distanced themselves from him.
In the UK, Hussain faced charges in 2019 related to encouraging terrorism through his 2016 speech but was acquitted by a 12-member jury in February 2022 on two counts of encouraging terrorism.
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