Former Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza has carried his fight against the MQM to the UK, has addressed the House of Lords and visited Scotland Yard. Not only has he accused the MQM of being behind the target killings that have afflicted Karachi, but also of the murder of party leader Dr Imran Farooq in London. Since the UK is where MQM chief Altaf Hussain has sought political asylum, the MQM is much perturbed by these attacks. The Pakistani community in the UK is apparently anxious to hear him speak, according to an interview he gave to this newspaper, and he is scheduled to speak in London, Luton, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and High Wycombe. Dr Mirza in the interview denied acting at the behest of anyone, and said that he was acting only according to his conscience. However, the MQMs ally, the PPP, the party to which he belonged until he left its Sindh government, has not disowned him, raising suspicions that he is acting on the behest of the Presidency, what with him being a very old friend of the President. It is perhaps a sign of how casually the PPP is treating the whole matter, and there has been no real sign of it accepting that, at the very least, Dr Mirzas outbursts have threatened its central government, which relies on the MQM to strengthen its majority, which would be razor-thin without it. He has turned to the UK government only because he must not have been satisfied with the attention his charges had been given at home. The government should have given the charges a proper investigation at home. Because it did not, it now has no justification for preventing him from seeking to build opinion in the UK so that it is inimical to the MQM. Apart from justification, there is also the undeniable fact that if, as the Supreme Court has held, political parties are involved in Karachis target killings, any light that Dr Mirza, Home Minister when they were going on, sheds deserves to be taken seriously. He also maintains that there has been a significant decline in governance, particularly in the failure to fulfill promises made by the PPP to the people. If the PPP had launched a proper investigation into Dr Mirzas charges, it would have avoided this criticism from him at least. Dr Mirzas charges are serious and criminal, but relate to domestic politics. Quite apart from the governments duty to ensure that dirty linen should not be washed in public, there is a need to ensure that Pakistani politics is carried out in Pakistan, not abroad. The PPP government should immediately carry out an investigation, for Dr Mirzas charges deserve no less.