Altaf Hussain, the founder of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), has announced that he released all workers from the oath of loyalty they had taken to the cause and to him, indicating that he has pulled the curtains on his long political career.
In his message posted on X account, MQM founder Altaf Hussain “Today, I release all workers of the movement from the oath of loyalty they had taken to the cause and to me. They are now free to go wherever they wish and to join any political party they choose.”
Hussain recalled that for the past 47 years he had been struggling for the rights of Pakistan’s deprived and oppressed people, particularly the Mohajir community. He said he had worked day and night without any break, enduring immense personal and collective losses. Thousands of his colleagues, he noted, had been martyred or forcibly disappeared, while many were displaced from their homes. His own family, he said, had made sacrifices no less severe.
آج تمام تحریکی کارکنوں کو تحریک اورمجھ سےوفاداری کے حلف سے آزاد کرتاہوں
……………………………………………آج دنیا بھر بشمول پاکستان کے تحریکی کارکنوں کے اجلا س سے خطاب کرتے ہوئے جناب الطاف حسین نےکہاکہ میں گزشتہ 47 برسوں سے پاکستان کے تمام محروم ومظلوم عوام خصوصاًمہاجرعوام کے… pic.twitter.com/3zDw3jg0CP
— Altaf Hussain (@AltafHussain_90) August 10, 2025
He recounted the December 1995 abduction and killing of his 77-year-old elder brother Nasir Hussain and young nephew Arif Hussain, who were tortured for three days before being shot dead in Gadap, Karachi. Arif Hussain, aged 28, was brutally slain with axe blows to the head.
He also described the arrest and six-month torture of his 70-year-old brother-in-law Aslam Ibrahimi in Adiala Jail, after which he was released in critical condition and later died of his injuries. Other family members, Hussain added, were forced to seek refuge abroad after repeated raids on their homes.
Despite thousands of martyrs, missing workers, and imprisoned colleagues—many of whom remain behind bars—Hussain admitted he had reached the conclusion that he had failed. “I could neither change Pakistan’s rotten, outdated system nor secure the rights of my Mohajir nation,” he said.
He clarified that although he was freeing all members, including the former Rabita Committee, conveners, deputy conveners, and rank-and-file workers, from their oath, he would continue the struggle for rights through social media as long as he lived. “Success or failure,” he remarked, “is in the hands of Allah.”
It is worth mentioning that Altaf Hussain has long been a polarizing figure in Pakistani politics. Living in self-imposed exile in London since the early 1990s, he holds United Kingdom citizenship.
Since 2015, he has been a fugitive from the Anti-Terrorism Court of Pakistan on the charges of ‘murder, targeted killing, treason, inciting violence and hate speech’. He went on trial in the UK in January 2022 for ‘promoting terrorism and unrest through hate speech in Pakistan’, and was acquitted the next month. He had fled the country in 1992 after a crackdown against his party was launched.
Recently, he was hospitalized in July 2025 with severe illness requiring multiple diagnostic tests and a blood transfusion. He was discharged in early August after recovering from a chest infection.
