Sources say intelligence suggests his death was linked to rows within the MQM.
Farooq, once prominent in MQM, had taken a back seat. A senior Pakistani source said he may have been about to endorse or join a new party set up by Pakistan's former military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf. The source said of the motive: "It lies within the MQM. Dr Farooq was probably going to join Musharraf."Asked about his reaction to Farooq's murder, Musharraf said: "It is terrible that such an assassination could happen in a place like London."
Imran Farooq, who was married with two young sons, claimed UK asylum in 1999 alongside Altaf Hussain, the MQM's leader. Altaf, who also lives in exile in London, has said "enemies of the MQM" killed Imran Farooq and they will try to kill him. Pakistan's media reported him as saying on Friday: "Now the enemies of the movement are after my life, but I want to tell them I am not afraid of anyone, whether it's a superpower like the United States or its Nato allies or their Pakistani agents … I fear the Almighty Allah and will never bow down before the conspirators even if they get my British citizenship rescinded."
Police in London are still hunting an attacker who, one witness said, appeared to be an Asian man. Analysts say the MQM has longstanding rivalries with ethnic Pashtun and Sindhi parties in Karachi. The MQM has also been driven by occasional internecine violence. Before entering the UK, Imran Farooq spent seven years on the run in Pakistan from criminal charges while the MQM was engaged in a violent battle for control of Karachi. He remained a key party figure. While MQM leader Altaf Hussain is protected by private guards and rarely appears in public following death threats, colleagues said Imran never believed he was at risk and had played a smaller role in the party since the birth of his sons, now aged five and three.
When The Daily Mail contacted an MQM spokesman, he said that the MQM is an organised party and all the reports linking Imran Farooq’s murder to a rift in the party are baseless.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief, who fled Pakistan late in 1992 when security agencies were investigating criminal allegations against him, issued a rare, emotional appeal to his political followers to stay united as he said he faced serious threats to his life at the hands of an international lobby.
His open letter to workers surfaced after the British media linked the murder of Dr Emran Farouq in Edgware, north London, with party feuds. Farouq was a Muttahida Qaumi Movement founding member and decades-old comrade of Hussain who ended up in London after being on the run for seven years in Pakistan due to criminal charges.
Hussain alleged "international powers" were working to eliminate him, for which party workers "should be mentally prepared".
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement has been run solely by Hussain from London for more than a decade where he claimed UK asylum. He holds party meetings and speaks to his party workers by phone.
Despite being the most trusted ally of former military dictator Pervez Musharraf, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement claims to have struggled against generals, feudal lords and chieftains who assumed "power through unfair means".
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