DNA
- Nusrat Bhutto has Alzheimer’s and lies bedridden in Dubai
Benazir Bhutto with mother Nusrat
Rawalpindi, Dec 29: Possibly, the only person in the world who believes Benazir Bhutto is alive is her mother, Nusrat. The former Pakistan prime minister was shot dead by a suicide bomber believed to be an al-Qaeda militant, on Thursday evening at Rawalpindi in Pakistan.
The begum, who lives in Dubai, has Alzheimer’s and is probably not in a mental state to fathom the tragedy that has befallen the family. “Begum Nusrat Bhutto is also bedridden, so we did not see any point in informing her about the Mohtarma’s death,” said Mohammed Anvar Baig, a close associate of the Bhutto family and a senator from the Pakistan Peoples’ Party.
In fact, Nusrat is now the last surviving member of Zulfikar Ali’s immediate family. Her husband was hanged by Zia ul-Haq in 1979, her two sons died under mysterious circumstances and now, of course, Benazir has been assassinated.
Nusrat Bhutto served as an MP from their family constituency of Larkana in Sindh. In 1990, when Benazir Bhutto was the prime minister, she became a cabinet minister and then deputy prime minister. Relations between the mother-daughter were strained after Nusrat supported son Murtaza against Benazir. But after Murtaza’s death the two were united in grief.
Chronology: Attacks in Pakistan since July 2007
Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was killed in a gun and bomb attack after a rally in the city of Rawalpindi on Thursday, her party said.
Here is a chronology of some of the worst bomb attacks since July:
July 14, 2007 - Suicide car-bomber kills 24 paramilitary soldiers and wounds 29 in North Waziristan.
July 15 - Sixteen people, most of them paramilitary soldiers, are killed in ambush on patrol in Swat valley in North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Separately, suicide bomber targets police recruiting centre in Dera Ismail Khan in NWFP, killing 29.
July 17 - Suicide bomber kills 16 people outside court in Islamabad where country's suspended chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, was due to speak.
July 19 - Three suicide attacks in a single day in three towns kill at least 52 people.
July 27 - Suicide bomb attack in restaurant near Islamabad's Red Mosque kills 13 people, most of them policemen.
September 4 - Two suicide bombers kill 25 in Rawalpindi.
September 11 - Suicide bomber kills 16 people in northwest Dera Ismail Khan.
September 13 - At least 15 soldiers killed in suicide bombing in an army canteen near Islamabad.
October 19 - At least 139 people killed in suicide bomb attack on Benazir Bhutto's motorcade as she is driven through Karachi after arriving home from eight years in self-exile. The attack is one of the deadliest in Pakistan's history.
October 25 - Suspected suicide bomber kills 21 people, including 17 soldiers, in an attack on an army convoy in the northwestern Swat valley.
November 24 - Twin suicide car bomb attacks kill 15 people in Rawalpindi, on the eve of the return of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif from exile in Saudi Arabia.
December 17 - A suicide bomber kills 10 military recruits in the northwestern town of Kohat.
December 21 - A suicide bomber kills at least 41 people in a mosque in northwest Pakistan during Eid festival prayers.
December 27 - Bhutto is killed in a gun and bomb attack after a rally in Rawalpindi. At least 16 others are killed in the attack.
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