Benazir Bhutto was the first woman to be elected as Prime Minister of Pakistan. The daughter of a feudal dynasty from Sindh was entrusted onto Pakistan’s political landscape by virtue of destiny. Still, she left an unforgettable mark on political culture & history of Pakistan. Ideologically a liberal & secularist woman, she co-chaired Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) from the early 1980s until her assassination. Benazir, a 54 year old graduate from Oxford & Harward was killed on 27 December 2007 in a suicide attack executed by a 15 year old boy named Bilal, little more than two month after returning from self-imposed exile to Pakistan, where she was aiming for her third tenure as PM. Before her death, she survived an assassination attempt in Karachi during this homecoming. On 18 Oct 2007, two explosions occurred shortly after she landed & left Jinnah International Airport resulting in death of 139 people & nearly 450 injured. Luckily Bhutto came out unharmed from the accident.
The cause of Bhutto’s assassination has been much discussed & debated. The most authoritative account of the death claims an assassin shot her in the neck & then blew himself up, killing 24 people. However, the clarity on who orchestrated the killing is still missing. Also, Pakistan being Pakistan wherein the conspiracy theories continue to envelop the myriad assassination of its political figures over decades, Bhutto’s death comes as no surprise or exception.
As per the Pakistan Theory, Pak govt blamed the assassination on then ‘Pakistani Taliban’ chief Baitullah Mehsud, who denied any involvement, He was killed in a drone attack in 2009. Although she was continuously being threatened by elements of Al-Queda, Taliban, local jihadist & Pak establishments, but the investigators focused on lower level operatives. In 2013, Pakistani court charged Parvez Musharraf with Bhutto’s killing, but he later fled Pakistan.
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) govt requested the UN team to investigate the assassination. According to UN Report, ‘Bhutto’s assassination could have been prevented if adequate security measures had been taken’. In its report, UN held Musharraf’s administration answerable for failing to provide adequate security to Benazir despite knowing the fact that she was being targetted. Moreover issues like failures in immediate investigation, refusal to allow autopsy of her body & insufficient evidences for team to investigate hinted at a coordinated plan & execution. However, the UN team stopped short of naming suspects, saying that the responsibility lay with Pakistani Court.
Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of Bhutto was elected the President when PPP came into power. He failed to make an impact unraveling the mysteries behind Bhutto’s murder. The eyebrows were further raised after his senior aide Bilal Sheikh was killed by a suicide bomber in 2013, Sheikh had been in-charge of Bhutto’s security when she returned to Pakistan post-exile. One more theory states that as Al-Qaeda wanted her dead, it hired Pakistani Taliban to execute the attack possibly with the support of rogue Intelligence agents while the local police would do a cover up. A decade later, Pakistani Taliban claimed the responsibility for the assignation of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007, stating it killed her as she planned to collaborate with US against the ‘Mujahideen’ if she returned to power, says a book by the terror group named ‘Inquilab Mehsood South Waziristan – From British Raj to American Imperialism’.
Numerous theories have been existing since last fifteen years, maybe more theories & claims will evolve, but Benazir Bhutto is gone. In the end, she paid the ultimate price for her belief in installation of democracy in Pakistan & standing against the self-proclaimed generals-cum-politicians whose greed & hunger for power seems no limit. The 15 yr old suicide bomber was only the face, the intention & conspiracy involved seems a much bigger game but sadly it seems that it will always remain a mystery.