# MQM Militancy

MQM militancy refers to militancy in Pakistan associated with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement party.

## History
### Rise (1978–1992)

The ancestor of the MQM was the All Pakistan Muttahidda Students Organization (APMSO), drew its support from muhajir defectors from the heavily armed Islami Jamiat ut-Taleba (IJT). A large number of Jamaat-i-Islami members who were ethnic Muhajirs shifted their loyalties to the MQM overnight, resulting in the elimination of the former influence of the Jamaat. APMSO was radicalised when in 1985–1986 the first (of the many) major clashes took place between Karachi's Muhajir and Pushtun communities. Faced by the superior firepower brought in by Afghan refugees, MQM dispatched a delegation of APMSO members to Hyderabad to meet a militant group from the Sindhi nationalist student organisation, the JSSF. APMSO were given some small firearms by PSF in the early 1980s, but it was JSSF that sold the APMSO its first large cache of AK-47s that were then used to tame the heavily armed IJT in 1987 and 1988, eventually breaking IJT's hold at KU and in various other state-owned campuses in Karachi. Admist ethnic violence, MQM's armed wings used street fighting and urban warfare as ethnic Muhajirs sought to use violence to control governing structures and appointments such as the Karachi Port Trust, Karachi Municipal Corporation and the Karachi Developmental Authority. During the MQM's stint in power in 1991, when it was part of the provincial government of Sindh, the party endorsed and participated in raids and the mass-arrests of its political rivals. Additionally, the MQM, supported by the government, was accused of operating as a mafia organization where its heavily armed militants used extortion and coercion to increase their influence.

### 1992 Operation Cleanup

In 1990s the Pakistani army and intelligence agencies according to multiple sources were growing increasingly concerned with the MQM's growing influence in urban Sindh, where it had become a de facto parallel government and was becoming more aggressive towards the government in Islamabad. The military high command viewed the MQM's treatment of opponents and journalists with alarm and saw the group as a "state within a state." A turning point came in 1991 when allegedly MQM activists mistreated two army officers in Karachi, leading to the launch of "Operation Cleanup" in May 1992. This operation was aimed to target "terrorist" and "criminal" activities in Sindh, but primarily focused on the MQM. The army claimed to have aimed to cleanse Muhajir neighbourhoods of militias, but in order to avoid charges of targeting a single political party, the army soon handed over the operation to the paramilitary Rangers. The crackdown, which involved a massive deployment of the army, resulted in the movement going underground, the party leader's exile, and a significant change in the MQM's operational strategy. A propaganda campaign was started by the army to label MQM as terrorists. As a result of the operations, while the organizational structure of the MQM were in disarray, its mass support among ethnic Muhajirs increased tremendously. The rise in the support mainly came due to the violent tactics used by the army to curb MQM.

### Post-1994 insurrections

During the months of May and June in 1994, the MQM carried out a series of attacks following the army's withdrawal. These included car bombings, riots, and secret killings, leading to the deaths of around 750 people, including non-Urdu speakers and other opponents of the MQM. The conflict its most bloodiest in May 1995, when MQM militants resurfaced to the ground, and systematically ambushed government offices, police stations and police patrols using rocket launchers. Although sporadic ethnic and sectarian violence had been a permanent feature of the Karachi landscape since 1980s, the level of organization and intensity of the violence in 1995 was unprecedented. About 300 people were killed in the month of June, the death toll reached 600 deaths in two months and 2,000 deaths in a year attributed to ethnic violence, leading analysts to compare the situation to the Kashmir insurrection which were also taking place in the 1990s. On June 25, 1995, nearly 80 policemen were killed in a five-week long assault by the MQM militants, and a total of 221 security forces were killed over the year, while over 70 police operations killed over 121 "terrorists" believed to be MQM activists or sympathizers. By 1996 it was described as a virtual civil war between the Pakistani security forces and the MQM. In 2002, the MQM assumed office in the provincial government and were elected to the city government in 2006 and 2008, while Karachi newspapers were accusing the MQM of eliminating opponents with impunity. This also involved violent, unchecked land expansion and real estate 'entrepreneurs' who were specualted to be illegally or violently occupying land driven by powerful political patrons in the MQM. Karachi experienced an exceptionally high level of violence in 2011 with some 800 people killed, where the MQM was widely viewed as the perpetrator of targeted killings, out of a total 1800 killings in Karachi.

## Militant recruits

MQM armed wing was composed of thousands of criminals, hitmen and university student-origin activists belonging to APMSO. According to ethnographic research conducted by Khan and Gayer, the militant members of the MQM were made up of both professional militants and part-time militants, the latter who carried out violent activities only occasionally. Some of the professional militants were trained in Afghanistan, and the MQM had a separate headquarters known as 'peeli kothi' located in Liaquatabad/Lalukhet, where they planned and organized violent activities. Initially, this location was used as a torture chamber for the party's political opponents, and later, it housed party cadres recruited for violent activities. The Pakistani Rangers alleged that the MQM's military wing had an "elite corps" engaged in torture and murder without the approval or knowledge of the party's leadership. The recruitment process included inspiration from Altaf Hussain and the promise of "career, income, power, respect, leadership, and brotherly love."