By Parveen Chopra, IANS
New York : Pakistani Americans have expressed their shock and fear for the future of their homeland after the elimination of popular leader Benazir Bhutto who was in the US only a few months ago, telling the media about her resolve to return to Pakistan and lead the restoration of democracy there.
“It’s a tragedy,” said Naved Musharraf, the anesthesiologist brother of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and long time resident of Chicago, “I don’t know what’s going to happen in the country.”
In Atlanta, another doctor, Muhammad Abbasi, said Thursday was a very bleak, dark day in Pakistan’s history because it has ended the life of a courageous leader. “Benazir knew the danger, yet she went back to Pakistan. She wanted to lead the people, and the people wanted her to lead.”
Zafar Hassan, the Atlanta bureau chief of New York’s Urdu Times and Pakistan Post, said, “The situation is bad in Pakistan right now, regardless of who is in power.” He said people he knows in Pakistan are afraid of riots, or of being hurt simply because they were running to the grocery store and passed by the wrong rally at the wrong time.
Farooq Soomro, a director of the Pakistani American Community in Atlanta, said, “I hope that emotions of the people will calm down and we will have the democracy that we’re looking for in Pakistan.”
In New York’s neighbouring Long Island, Hafizur Rehman, president of a Bay Shore mosque, said all Pakistanis he knows in the area are in a state of shock, “whether they liked Bhutto or not.”
“We were hoping elections would go forward and she would become the prime minister, and Musharraf would stay as president and some stability would come,” Rehman said.
Ras Siddiqui, a local political analyst, praised Bhutto, saying, “She was a symbol of hope for millions of people – the moderates, the democratic forces in Pakistan and especially the poor and the disenfranchised. Most likely she would have won the Jan 8 election.”
Speculating about the assassins or their motives, Siddiqui said, “It had to be somebody who felt directly threatened. It wasn’t President Musharraf because there was talk of him and Bhutto cooperating to form a front for moderate forces. I believe this attack was an attack on the federation of Pakistan.”
Rashid Ahmad, a veteran Pakistani American leader in the area, noted that the Jan 8 elections may now be delayed. His advice for Pakistani Americans is to “somehow reach out to elected officials to encourage more genuine democracy in Pakistan so there’s less chance of extremist measures”.
“You can never stop somebody form being extremist,” Ahmad said, “but you can certainly dry up his sources of people who can be indoctrinated.”
In Omaha, Bilal Khaleeq, board chairman of the local Islamic Center, said about the latest suicide attack in Pakistan, “The sanctity of life seems to have become meaningless. That people would go to any extreme to accomplish their goals, whatever they are, affects the whole country. It affects normal daily existence.”