By Dipankar De Sarkar, IANS
London : Even as Pakistan erupted in turmoil, the large Pakistani community in Britain – many of them supporters of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto – closed ranks and offered Friday prayers for their slain leader.
In doing so they took their cue from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown who led strong European condemnations by calling Bhutto’s assassins “cowards who are afraid of democracy”.
The Pakistani flag flew at half-mast at the London high commission, but the mood in Britain was best captured in the city of Bradford, home to nearly 80,000 people of Pakistani origin, mostly from the Mirpur region of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Bradford shot into the media spotlight in 1989 after strong Muslim protests against writer Salman Rushdie’s novel “The Satanic Verses” for its alleged blasphemy against Islam, earning the northern England city an anti-democratic and medievalist reputation.
But on Friday, Bradford’s Muslim leaders condemned moderniser Bhutto’s assassination as a threat to democracy and a “sad day” for Pakistan.
Ishtiaq Ahmed, a spokesperson for the Bradford Council of Mosques, said: “The murder of Benazir Bhutto is a major setback to restoring democracy in Pakistan.
“The country, presently in the clutches of military, is being held at ransom by anti-democratic and terrorist forces,” he added.
Mohammed Akram, from the large Hanfia mosque in Bradford, said people wanted to know who was behind Bhutto’s killing.
“We’re shocked and we were very sad when we heard this news,” he told British Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio 5 Live.
“She had a lot of supporters in Bradford. In fact, her father had a lot of support and since then she was like a Bradfordian to us,” Akram added.