NDTV
The brave woman departs (Pic Washington Post)
Rawalpindi, Dec 29: The Pakistan government has claimed that PPP leader Benazir Bhutto did not die of bullet or shrapnel injury, thereby creating a controversy over as to how the leader was killed.
Speaking to reporters at a press conference, Javed Cheema, Interior Ministry spokesperson, said that the injury on the slain leader was actually caused by the lever of the sunroof of her vehicle.
Benazir peeped out of the sunroof of the SUV but the shock of the explosion by the suicide bomber made her fall back. She got injured on her skull by the lever, Cheema said.
Benazir applies lipstick as she prepares for the rally that led to her death (Pic sent by Ahmed Anwar)
Cheema also claimed that Al Qaeda leader Betulla Masood ordered the killing of Bhutto. The Pakistan government has intercepts of congratulations message on her killing, he added.
Cheema said that two high-level inquiries ordered - one, judicial and the other by Additional Inspector of General of Police in Punjab.
The doctors at Rawalpindi General Hospital who tried to save Bhutto's life said on Friday that she had been hit in the head by shrapnel from the suicide bomb attack and that there were no bullet wounds on her body.
PPP leaders had said on Thursday that she had been hit by shots fired by the suicide attacker while she was waving to her supporters from the sunroof of her armoured vehicle.
Mussed Khan, the surgical specialist of the hospital, told a press conference that no heartbeat or pulse was recordable when Bhutto was brought to the hospital and she had shown no signs of life.
These conditions showed there was some severe injury that stopped the supply of blood to her head.
A triumphant Benazir Bhutto returns from exile on April 10, 1986. Top: Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari getting married in Karachi in 1987; and below, being rescued after an assassination attempt on October 27 this year.
"The injury over Bhutto's right ear had irregular edges. If there were any bullet injuries, it would have been a little opening and wide exit, but the cardiac arrest was due to brain injury,'' the doctor said.
An X-ray also showed no signs of bullet injuries. Doctors tried to resuscitate Bhutto and performed an open heart massage before declaring her dead at 6:16 pm, he said.
Earlier version
However, the earlier version was quite different. It was said that the assassin was at the entrance to the rally ground, standing in the middle of a crowd of PPP workers shouting slogans.
Benazir stopped the car and stood out from the sunroof of the SUV to wave at party workers. The lone assassin was standing behind the car and he now fired three shots at Benazir Bhutto from close range.
Benazir was hit in the back of her neck and her back.
She fell back into the car, as the bystanders tried to catch the assassin, who was wearing a suicide vest detonated himself, killing some 20 PPP workers and policemen standing there.
Bhutto buried beside her father as mourners promise revenge
The Guardian
Benazir Bhutto's last moments were spent, like much of her life, as a lone woman among men. A sea of male hands bore her from her country home in Naudero inside a simple wooden coffin decked with the red, green and black flag of her Pakistan People's party. Wails rang out from the women's enclosure inside the house.
The cortege continued down a road lined with silver-barked eucalyptus trees and pools of bathing water buffalo before reaching the family mausoleum at Gahri Khuda Baksh, a towering Mughal-style structure topped with onion-shaped domes. Tens of thousands of men, many draped in the party colours or brandishing photos of the fallen heroine, followed.
Anguished, distraught faces pressed up against the ambulance carrying her coffin as it squeezed through the throng. Glassy-eyed, with combed moustaches, jet black turbans or small red scarves, many struggled to contain their tears.
Angry talk flowed, peppered with accusations that President Pervez Musharraf's officials had secretly orchestrated the bomb attack that killed Bhutto on Wednesday afternoon. The invective exposed naked hatred of Musharraf, old provincial rivalries and despair for the future of Pakistan.
"Punjab is responsible for this. We hate the Punjab. Benazir was safe wherever she went, but when she went to Punjab, she was martyred," said Gul Muhammad Jakhrani, who had travelled from Kashmore district, about two hours away. "The future of Pakistan is very dark."
There were few signs that this unofficial kingdom of Bhutto was part of Pakistan. No police were present, there were no national flags, no security checks and no state burial. "Pakistan is no more," declared labourer Fida Hussain.
A few miles away there were pressing signs of recent turmoil - roads blocked by tyres, a line of shuttered shops, and the still-smoking carcass of a burned-out train, abandoned before a crossroads. According to local media, banks, petrol stations and even two weapons stores had been looted or torched in nearby Larkana.
Nationally the mood was equally dark. At least 31 people were killed amid rioting and protests with banks ransacked and shootouts waged with police .
In the relative bubble of tranquillity at the Bhutto mausoleum Zulfikar Ali Abbasi, a wild-eyed young man wrapped in a PPP flag, reflected that mood. "We want to take revenge," he said. "Benazir is our real leader."
The funeral brought Bhutto's friends and party colleagues from Karachi. They arrived on a chartered plane because Sindh's deserted roads, lined with destroyed vehicles, were too dangerous. On arrival in Sukkar, the group was greeted by the whiff of burning rubber and a billowing plume of inky smoke that curled across the sky.
Zia Ispahani, a former ambassador and long-time Bhutto friend, said her death was a great tragedy. "Nobody can fill her position. We are like leaderless orphans," he said. Zulfikar Ali Mirza, Bhutto's former security chief, said she was keenly aware of the dangers to her life but she was a "born risk taker". "We always told her don't take such risks but she was a strong believer in her destiny and fate," he said. "She would say that 'when the time will come, nobody can save me. And when my time is not done, nobody can kill me'."
Inside the mausoleum, Bhutto's remains were laid to rest in a deep pit cut from the marble floor. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, and son Bilawal, 19, were the focus of the hour-long burial, struggling to keep their feet as a pulsating crowd of supporters crowded around, shouting "God is Great!" and "Long live Bhutto!".
The woman, who had the distinction of being the first woman head of government of an Islamic country and became in 1988 the world's youngest prime minister at the age of 35, left behind three teenaged children, her politically ambitious husband Asif Zardari, an ailing mother Nusrat - who at one time was acting chairperson of her PPP - and younger sister Sanam. And millions of grieving supporters for whom she personified hope for a better tomorrow and a more democratic Pakistan. AP file pic shows Benazir Bhutto (centre) coming out of Landhi jail in Karachi with her son Bilawal Bhutto (left) and daughter Asifa Bhutto after meeting her husband Asif Zardari on September 25, 1998
Bilawal, a tall, solemn-faced man who followed in his mothers footsteps this year by starting his studies at Oxford, knelt and threw fistfuls of sandy soil into the cavity. His father - a figure famed for his love of the good life who served a long jail term on corruption charges - stood over his son, hand on his shoulder.
Benazir Bhutto's grave is situated beside an ornate marble tomb housing her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was toppled by the military in 1977 and hanged two years later. In life she lionized her father, endlessly using his image on election posters and in powerful campaign rhetoric. In death, they are lying side by side.
Many expressed doubts about whether the political party that the two Bhutto giants came to personify would survive. "The PPP is no more because we have lost our charismatic leader," said Akhtar Ali Sial. "The family is finished, and so is the Bhutto cause," said another.
On the other side of Benazir lay the remains of her two brothers, both of whom also died in murky, violent circumstances - Shahnawaz was allegedly poisoned in a villa in the south of France, while Murtaza was shot dead by Karachi police in still disputed circumstances.
Her grave completed, the mourners draped a red velvet cloth on top and threw handfuls of red rose petals. The fourth Bhutto "martyr" had reached her resting place.
Outside, evening was falling. The vast crowds dissipated down a dusty track as a glowing orange orb hovered over the horizon. The family returned to their mansion to start a mourning period expected to last at least 40 days. Soon nobody was left, except for Benazir, reunited in death with the father she idolized.
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