Show caption Vehicles stuck in traffic jam caused by protests in Karachi. Photograph: PPI/REX Shutterstock Pakistan Pakistan’s largest city set to be run by imprisoned mayor Waseem Akhtar, who has been in jail for more than a month, is set to become the new mayor of Karachi Jon Boone in Islamabad Mon 22 Aug 2016 22.00 EDT Share on Facebook

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One of the world’s most populous cities is set to be run from inside a jail cell after Karachi’s new mayor takes power in the face of staunch opposition from Pakistan’s powerful military.

Waseem Akhtar, a former MP, has been held for more than a month at Karachi’s central prison and is unlikely to be released any time soon.

He is accused of several crimes, including instigating city-wide riots in May 2007 and arranging medical care for wanted terrorists.

His detention is part of an increasingly fraught battle between security forces and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a political party that has dominated Karachi’s politics for decades even though its leader, Altaf Hussain, lives in self-exile in north London.

On Monday protesters ransacked the studios of ARY News as part of a violent protest at the lack of news coverage of the hunger strike. One person was killed and eight injured when MQM workers marched on the station after listening to a speech by Hussain broadcast from London.

Separately, Farooq Sattar, MQM’s most senior parliamentarian, was arrested on Monday as he arrived to address a press conference at Karachi’s Press Club.

MQM put Akhtar forward as its choice for mayor in December – a position he is bound to secure, given the party’s overwhelming control of the council of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, which will elect a mayor from among its members on Wednesday.

Nasreen Jalil, an MQM senator, said Akhtar would attempt to tackle the many problems of the sprawling mega-city of 20 million from prison.

“This is likely to go on for many months so we will ask the government to let him have an office in jail,” she said. “Obviously he should be on the ground to do his work but we just have to work around it.”

The MQM claims to have been targeted by the Rangers – a paramilitary force tasked in 2013 with cleaning up Pakistan’s commercial capital, which was beset by Islamist militancy, political violence and criminal gangs.

Although nominally a civilian law enforcement organisation, the Rangers are led by generals from the all-powerful army, an institution which has long competed with political parties for supremacy.

The MQM has dominated Karachi’s politics through the support of mohajirs, the largely well-off, Urdu-speaking Muslims who moved from India in 1947.





The Rangers, after initially focusing their efforts on strongholds of the Pakistani Taliban, and participating in a wave of alleged extrajudicial killings known as “encounters”, turned their attention to the MQM, which has long operated a militant wing alongside the political party.

In March 2015 relations between the two sides plummeted after the Rangers raided the party’s headquarters, a heavily defended neighbourhood known as Nine Zero.

Speeches by Altaf Hussain were later banned after he launched a tirade of abuse against the army.

Hussain, who is the subject of murder and money-laundering investigations by police in London, used to regularly address vast crowds of MQM workers who would assemble to hear him speak over the phone from his base in Edgware.

One of the charges against Akhtar is that he had been seen applauding at such a broadcast.

The MQM also claims 130 of its activists have been illegally detained and 62 killed, according to figures provided by Jalil.

On Wednesday a host of senior MQM politicians and party functionaries began a protest hunger strike outside Karachi’s Press Club.

“Over the last year operations against MQM supporters and Urdu speakers have intensified,” Jalil said. “The Rangers have gone out of their way to criminalise us.”



The multiple problems confronting the MQM, which includes the establishment of a rival splinter party earlier in the year, has not dented its popularity.

The MQM won a landslide victory in local elections in December 2015 despite reports that Rangers personnel attempted to intimidate voters in some polling stations.

Pakistan’s many languages

English and Urdu are not even the most common first languages in Pakistan, despite their official adoption.

48% speak Punjabi , mainly in eastern Punjab province.



, mainly in eastern Punjab province. 12% speak Sindhi , mainly in south eastern Sindh province.



, mainly in south eastern Sindh province. 10% speak Saraiki , a variant of Punjabi.



, a variant of Punjabi. 8% speak Pashto , in west and north western Pakistan.



, in west and north western Pakistan. 8% speak Urdu.



3% speak Balochi, mainly in Balochistan.



mainly in Balochistan. English is the most popular among government ministries.

