Benazir Shot Dead
FORMER PAKISTAN prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on Thursday in a suicide attack shortly after a political rally in Rawalpindi's Liagat Bagh. Bhutto, 54, suffered bullet wounds to her neck and head. She was declared dead in hospital. Thirty other people died in the attack, almost all victims of the suicide bomber who pushed through the security cordon on a bicycle. He blew himself up immediately after shooting Benazir "The man first fired at her vehicle. She ducked and then he blew himself up," said police officer Mohammad Shahid. She collapsed inside her Toyota Land Cruiser, which pulled out of the melee and drove to RawalpindiGeneralHospita1nearby She is believed to have died of excessive bleeding and heart failure."We have been robbed of a great leader and a symbol of courage and determination," said Farahnaz Ispahani, a woman member of Bhutto's party Benazir's husband, Asif Zardari, who rushed to Pakistan from Dubai (where he lives), said it was a targeted attack. Benazir became the first woman prime minister in the Muslim world when she was elected in 1988 at the age of 35. She was deposed by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in 1990, reelected in 1993, and ousted again in 1996 amid charges of corruption and mismanagement. She said the charges were politically motivated but in 1999 chose to stay in exile rather than face them. The fatal attack took place at the main gate of Liagat Bagh, one of the major public parks in Rawalpindi, the garrison town next to Islamabad. After her return from self-exile two months ago, her political convoy was bombed in Karachi. In that incident as well, shots were fired at her van.
On Thursday afternoon, Benazir completed her speech well ahead of the sunset deadline that the election commission had set for political rallies. As her vehicle was leaving the ground, the suicide bomber struck. In her speech, Benazir spoke of the risks she faced. "I put my life in danger and came here because I feel this country is in danger People are worried. We will bring the country out of this crisis," she told the rally It was a promise that she was unable to keep. People cried, hugged each other and shouted anti-Musharraf slogans outside the hospital where she died.
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Image and Article source: Hindustan Times
Article taken from the issue: 28 Dec 2007
Labels: assassinated, Benazir Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto killed, Pakistan, rawalpindi
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