The MQM leader taking on Altaf Hussain in Karachi

The MQM leader taking on Altaf Hussain in Karachi

Outside a house in an affluent seaside neighbourhood of Karachi, several satellite trucks are parked in a row.

The place is swarming with media. Television hosts from Pakistan’s numerous political talk shows are jostling for their “exclusive” interviews.

The media frenzy is met by heightened security around the house: recently installed barbed wire, CCTV cameras and iron gates. A full body search is conducted before visitors are allowed in.

The place serves as the headquarters of a breakaway group from Karachi’s biggest political party, the MQM.

It is a risky gamble and seemingly the first organised attempt in more than two decades to take on Altaf Hussain, the MQM’s founding leader who has lived in self-imposed exile in London for the last 24 years.

Mr Hussain is a maverick politician who has encouraged a personality cult to build up around him.

He maintains a firm grip over the party, and through it, on Pakistan’s financial capital.

Over the years, potential dissenters have been eliminated – sometimes physically, opponents allege, although the MQM has always denied allegations of murder.

The man leading the latest rebellion is Mustafa Kamal, the party’s former elected mayor of Karachi. Posters displayed at the main gate of his camp office declare him “a ray of hope”.

“We have been inundated with phone calls and messages of support. The response has been overwhelming,” he says as he sits down with me after a hectic day of back-to-back meetings and television interviews.

It is around midnight, but far from being exhausted he appears driven and energised.

“This city and this country have suffered enough bloodshed because of the greed and disloyalty of one man playing with its fate from London.

“We are here to say: enough is enough. Karachi and Pakistan deserve better,” he says.