Asif Zardari is a Suspect for Murder of

Benazir & Murtaza Bhutto

Ishaque Khakwani in "˜The Nation' Lahore, August 4, 2008

How can Asif Zardari be a candidate of the PPP for any office until he is cleared by a judicial inquiry of suspicion of having a hand in the assassination of his wife and brother in law? Under the title, "˜Two Assassination', Ishaque Khan Khakwani writes the following about the assassinations of Benazir Bhutto (BB) and her brother Mir Murtaza Bhutto (MMB): 

The brother and sister started to differ with each other's views on politics of PPP, when BB decided to come back to Pakistan during Gen Ziaul Haq's rule, under an arrangement, while MMB took a principled stand that PPP could not have a working relationship with a military dictator.  Total deterioration of relationship occurred when MMB was imprisoned in Karachi on return from Syria, and later when she married Asif Zardari.

By then certain person(s) took advantage of the Bhutto family's internal dissension and eliminated MMB on September 20, 1996. These elements had their vested interest in inheriting the political power.

In exactly similar circumstances, certain person(s) again took advantage of the situation and took BB out of the equation of Pakistani politics. They planned her ruthless murder for the same motive as that of MMB.

Certain conclusions can be drawn from a case study of the murders of MMB and BB, as there are many similarities between them.

Both were coming in a motorcade after attending a public meeting and therefore vulnerable to an attempt on their lives.

Both were hit when they came out of their vehicle, MMB was stopped by the contingent of Sindh Police and was lured to come out.

BB may not have wanted to come out of the hood of the vehicle for security concerns, but she was edged on by someone close to her, to stand up so as not to disappoint the party workers.

Both were hit in the head by marksmen as there were two bullet wounds in case of MMB and only one in BB's case.

In both cases the crime scenes were washed away by the municipality concerned, thus destroying the forensic and ballistic evidence.

The perpetrators of both the killings remain untraced like all high profile murders, which have taken place in Pakistan. This raises the suspicion in the minds of the general public as to the involvement of the high-ups in the government (on both occasions).

The most important similarity between the two assassinations is that premeditated versions of the killings were aired in great hurry, immediately by the state controlled media and the police in MMB's case, while in BB's case it took less than 24 hours by the spokesperson of the ministry of interior to give his findings.

In MMB's case the version aired was that a shoot out had taken place between the police and the guards of MMB, due to cross fire MMB and his 6 associates, including his party Sindh president Ashiq Jatoi, were killed.

In reality the facts were quite to the contrary. The Sindh police, to prove their innocence, could only produce one Assistant Superintendent of Police Shahid Hayat, as a witness, who was shot in the foot, during the cross fire, and the medical examiner declared that his wound was self-inflicted.

All the associates of MMB, including himself had only one or two bullet injuries which proved fatal in each death. Had there been a sporadic fire, it should have caused multiple injuries to the victims (and to the policemen). It was a pure and simple case of targeted shooting.

In BB's killing, within 4 hours, a version was given out by Brig. Cheema, spokesman of the ministry of interior, again in indecent haste. According to the federal government the cause of death was BB's head being hit by the lever of the sunroof of her vehicle.

The postmortem of the deceased was not carried out on the request of her spouse, the request readily accepted at the highest level.

No witness account was recorded either. Much of the important evidence was washed away. No one was held responsible for lack of security. Within a few hours' voice recordings of the perpetrators, admitting to the killing of BB was produced by the ministry of interior, to which there has been no further reference.

With little evidence, and no thorough investigation, a conclusion was drawn by the federal government of Pakistan, which is beyond everyone's comprehension.

A strong similarity between the two cases is that a very important witness of the crime scene in each case was physically eliminated. In MMB's case the station house officer (SHO) of Clifton, Karachi, Inspector Haq Nawaz Sial, under whose jurisdiction the killings took place, was found dead at his residence in the police lines Karachi, a highly guarded area, shot in the head with his own revolver.

It was rumoured that the SHO was not in the full picture about the killings and he had threatened to divulge all the details of the operation, in case he or his men were implicated in any way in the killings.

In case of BB's killing on 27 December 2007, at Rawalpindi, Khalid Shahenshah, a security guard in charge of her house in Karachi, who was pictured in close proximity to BB at the time of her killing, was gunned down after some time after her death. Elimination of these important witnesses to the crime, to date remains untraced.

Examining the points raised above, regarding the similarities between MMB's and BB's murders, one can draw different conclusions, one being that: persons responsible of MMB's killing had perfected their skills when it came to BB's elimination 12 years later.
 

When the Sindh police refused to record the complaint as per version of Ms Ghinwa Bhutto, widow of MMB and Ms Zaib-un-Nissa, widow of Ashiq Jatoi, the court of the Sindh chief justice had to be moved and after considerable effort police was ordered by the CJ to lodge the First Information Report (FIR) as desired by the widows.

Many witnesses dared to record their statements against the high and mighty without fear or favour. Over two dozen witnesses deposed before the trial court and the case has still not reached any conclusion till date (July 2008).

The court battle still goes on even after 12 years, while many governments have come and gone and many judges shifted and shuffled places, the aggrieved yet to get justice. While Ms Ghinwa Bhutto and her children have faced many threats to their life.

None of BB's many followers, her many lawyers, her political and financial beneficiaries has lodged an FIR in the police station to bring to book the elements, which they think, are responsible for BB's killing.

None of them even insisted on carrying a post-mortem on her which could help in the future investigations. No one in the list of her devotees even stopped the municipal authorities of Rawalpindi from washing away the site of crime, resulting in the destruction of very important evidence.

Can all this be attributed to negligence, incompetence or carelessness on the part of all and everyone? I have my serious doubts. There is definitely some other motive behind this gruesome murder not being investigated. All the friends, family and the party did was to hurriedly go and bury her with great fanfare in her ancestral graveyard, in Ghari and capitalise on her death.++