Adil Najam
News is just breaking that former Prime Minister and head of the Pakistan People’s Party, Benazir Bhutto was killed in Rawalpindi in a terrorist attack.
She was gunned down by an assassin who then blew himself up in a suicide attack. This happened at the end of her rally in Liaquat Bagh, Rawalpindi; the same place where Liaqat Ali Khan, Pakistan’s first Prime Minister was assassinated. Major news networks are now reporting that following bomb blasts at Benazir Bhutto’s rally in Rawalpindi, shots were fired directly targeting her. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari says that one of these shots hit her in the neck and killed her.
According to early BBC reports:
Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a presumed suicide attack, a military spokesman has announced on TV. Earlier reports said Ms Bhutto had only been injured and taken to hospital.
Ms Bhutto had just addressed a pre-election rally in the town of Rawalpindi when the bomb went off. At least 15 other people are reported killed in the attack and several more were injured. Ms Bhutto had twice been the country’s prime minister. She was campaigning ahead of elections due in January.
‘She expired’
The explosion occurred close to an entrance gate of the park in Rawalpindi where Ms Bhutto had been speaking. Benazir Bhutto had been addressing rallies in many parts of Pakistan
PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar initially said that Ms Bhutto was safe. But later he told the BBC that Ms Bhutto had died. Another member of the PPP, Wasif Ali Khan, told the Associated Press news agency from the Rawalpindi General Hospital: “At 6:16 pm (1316 GMT) she expired.”
I, like most Pakistanis, am still too numb with shock and grief to think coherently about what has happened or what the implications of this are for the country and for the world. But this I know, whether you agreed with her political positions or not you cannot but be in shock. Even as I type these lines I am literally shaking. Hers was a tragic life story. So tragic that had it not been real no one would have believed it.
At this point all sorts of thoughts float through the politics of this. Why did this happen? Why was it not stopped? What could have been done to stop this senseless murder? Maybe she should not have come back? Who did this? What will this mean for the elections? What will this mean for the PPP? What will this mean for Gen. Musharraf? What will this mean for Pakistan? But all of these are paled by thoughts about Benazir as a person. The woman. The wife. The mother. The human being. What about her?
I have not always agreed with her politically but there was always a respect for her political courage. I had met her many times, first as a journalist covering her when she had just returned to Pakistan in the Zia era and before she became Prime Minister. Later a number of times in her two stints as Prime Minister and thena few times during her exile. In that last period she toll to referring to me as “Professor sahib” and some of our exchanges were more candid (at least on my part) than they had been earlier.
At a human level this is a tragedy like no other. Only a few days ago I was mentioning to someone that the single most tragic person in all of Pakistan – maybe all the world – is Nusrat Bhutto. Benazir’s mother. Think about it. Her husband, killed. One son alledgedly poisoned. Another son assassinated. Daughter rises to be Prime Minister twice, but jailed, exiled, and finally gunned down.
Today, in shock, I can think only of Benazir Bhutto the human being. Tomorrow, maybe, I will think of politics.
I am stunned, speechless and senseless as its a great tragedy for us where a symbol of unity and moderate values in Pakistan has been assassinated. Its hard to believe and write Mohtarma Benazir’s Bhutto (LATE). We should commend her courage and bravery against terrorism and dictatorship. Its a great loss for Pakistan.
Another key member of Bhutto family assassinated and her children are deprived of loving mother.
Great Lady…I am speechless.
I’m still numb to think politics, but I can see one thing from all the posts:
There runs a common thread of negativity and despair. We as a culture are a product of our collective thinking. So please think and stop yourself before you write phrases like “ashamed to be a Pakistani” and Pakistan having no “hope for democracy” or throw around hopeless predictions. In life the best things can happen out of the darkest gloom. By this I don’t mean to undermine BB’s death. It is indeed a phenomenal shock and setback (regardless of her politics). The posts complain about the violence prevalent in Pakistani society, yet a considerable number (on this and other blogs) wish a similar death upon others they think are “mulk kay dushman”. Crying uncontrollably out of grief is natural, but the urge to be destructive needs self restraint. A crisis is meant to make you into a better human being if it it doesn’t break you, isn’t it? We Pakistanis as a nation have survived alot. If we can learn one lesson ie we cannot rely on icons to save us. We are all responsible for the state of our society and politics and we all need to save ourselves from the dark state of humanity we have been complacent about. We are capable of emerging as a mature and fine nation.
Asim, I appreciate your sentiments, and had no love lost for her. This is what I wrote:
http://tinyurl.com/2k35xv
My condolences to the people of Pakistan…. this cycle of murder has to be broken.
No one of right mind wants to see an educated and gifted, if slightly flawed person murdered. It’s especially sad when it’s a woman, in a part of the world where that is a rarer combination than it should be.
Sadly this senseless killing just confirms the opinion of the many people, who believe that your country is slipping slowly into a civil war and eventual breakup.
The middle classes in Pakistan are almost blinkered or delusional in their belief that someone else will ‘sort it all out’, and set Pakistan back on the road to secular moderate democracy, while they “tut tut from behind their privileged lifestyles without getting involved.
Instead of complaining on the blogs about the rise of the religious parties, that hold your illiterate working classes in medieval thralldom (and can find so many willing to murder in the name of your religion).
Or the role of the army, who carry out your dirty work by reining in the more extreme religious elements or corrupt middle class politicians, you should be participating in the efforts to clean up corruption and bring back secular conditions to your country.
Take this latest outrage as the last warning you will get, before you have to start considering abandoning your country to permanent violence. Remember this, the world will not sit by and watch religious extremists get hold of nuclear weapons, and do nothing.
You have big non muslim neighbours who will not risk being attacked and its one of the downsides of being a nuclear power, is that it’s of no use internally, but attracts the interests of bigger powers when you become unstable.
So why don’t you organise a new political party, based upon the best agenda that you can create and see if you can make the difference.
Your blog claims that the majority of Pakistani’s agree with you, in a moderate, tolerant approach to religion and politics, so see if you can harness the people of good will, to save Pakistan from the forces that will evettually tear it apart.
Look at Waristan and see your future if nothing changes.