KARACHI: At least three candidates backed by Altaf Hussain’s Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) have been arrested ahead of the February 8 general elections, said a London-based party official on Tuesday, adding the police were also behind 15 others whose houses had been raided in Karachi and Hyderabad cities of Sindh province.

Hussain founded the MQM in 1984 and turned it into a significant force in Karachi before going into self-imposed exile in London in the early 1990s. He continued to manage it remotely for the next three decades, and the MQM won several elections during this period.

However, he made a controversial speech on August 22, 2016, which was deemed as anti-Pakistan and triggered a crackdown which led to the arrest of party workers and sealing of the MQM Karachi headquarters, Nine Zero.

Following the incident, Hussain’s deputies distanced themselves from his politics and formed MQM-Pakistan, which secured five national seats in the 2018 general elections. The Hussain-led party, also known as MQM-London, decided to boycott the elections.

Last Sunday, the MQM-London announced it was backing 81 candidates, which prompted a crackdown against them in Karachi and Hyderabad.

The MQM leader Mustafa Azizabadi said that a large-scale crackdown began soon after the party announced the backing of independent candidates.

“Our PS-126 candidate Dr. Osama Anjum and PS-108 contender Tehseen Abbasi have been arrested in Karachi, while Iqbal Arian, who is contesting from PS-65 Hyderabad, has also been detained,” he told Arab News, urging the chief justice of Pakistan to instruct the authorities to release the candidates immediately.

“Separately, raids have been conducted on the homes of 15 other candidates,” he added.

“Two of our candidates, Nisar Ahmed Panhwar, who is contesting for a National Assembly seat, and his son Mohsin Panhwar, who is in the race for a provincial seat, have already gone missing,” Azizabadi informed.

Sindh’s interim home minister, Brig. (r) Haris Nawaz, information minister, Ahmed Shah, and a police spokesperson in Karachi city did not respond to requests for comment.

Among the 81 candidates supported by Hussain’s party, 27 are competing for the National Assembly seats, 19 of them from Karachi, two from Hyderabad, while the rest are contesting from various other districts of Sindh province. At least 15 of them were assigned the letter “A” as their election symbol.

Among the 54 contenders for provincial seats, 37 are contesting from different Karachi constituencies, while the rest are running from other urban areas in the province.

Twenty-five of these provincial assembly candidates have secured the symbol “A,” suggesting that they were supported by Hussain from the outset, though the MQM-London did not announce it until the ballot papers were printed.