By Muhammad Najeeb, IANS
Islamabad : The Pakistan government’s claim that former prime minister Benazir Bhutto did not die of gunshots or a blast but by hitting her head against the sunroof lever of her vehicle has infuriated her supporters, who call it “a pack of lies” and say it could lead to increased violence.
“The government is pushing the country towards civil war by saying such strange things,” Bhutto’s lawyer Farooq Naik told IANS Saturday, a day after Bhutto was buried at her ancestral graveyard in Garhi Khuda Bux where her father, two brothers, stepmother and 11 other relatives are also buried.
“This is a pack of lies. Are the makers of such a costly vehicle fools that the sunroof of the vehicle could fatally injure her?” asked Naik. He warned that such foolish statements by the government would turn the violence into a civil war.
“We are requesting our people to remain peaceful, but we won’t be able to do so if the government continues giving such statements,” he said.
Bhutto, chief of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), died Thursday, minutes after addressing a public rally at Liaqat Bagh in nearby Rawalpindi while she was being driven away with her two close associates.
Initial reports said when some of her supporters surrounded her vehicle and raised slogans of “long live Bhutto,” “prime minister Benazir,” she appeared from the sunroof of her bulletproof vehicle to wave at them.
While she was waving, two bullets hit her – one in the neck and the other in the head and she fell down. She was rushed to a nearby hospital where she died. Earlier reports said there was a blast 30 seconds before the gunshots and it was followed by another blast, which damaged her vehicle.
But Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema after her burial said she did not die of gunshots or any blast, rather, she was killed after she smashed her head with the sunroof lever while docking herself down in the vehicle.
He said three bullets were fired at Bhutto but none hit her and the firing was followed by a blast, which damaged her jeep. He said the attack was an act masterminded by Al Qaeda leader Baitullah Mehsood and was carried out by two of his men.
Cheema, a former military brigadier, said intelligence agencies intercepted a telephone call Friday morning from a follower of Mehsood, informing the Al Qaeda leader that they had completed the job, and they congratulated each other.
Earlier, the General Hospital doctors had given statements to journalists that were published in several national newspapers that Bhutto died of bullet wounds, one in the neck and the second in the head.
But later Friday morning, the press note of the hospital said there was no bullet wound on Bhutto’s body. She died after she was hit by some other “element”.
Naik said: “It is an irreparable loss and they are turning it into a joke with such claims.”
Bhutto was an outspoken critic of Al Qaeda-linked militants, blamed for scores of bombings in Pakistan, and had received death threats. But she had also accused elements from the intelligence services of involvement in the suicide attack on her rally in October soon after her return to Pakistan that left 139 dead and that she narrowly escaped.
The leading English language newspaper Dawn said the government has given a new twist to the “story”.
Another leader of PPP leader Farhatullah Babar said the government was doing all this to divert international and national attention from the real issues.
Cheema in his press conference also said no autopsy was conducted on Bhutto’s body as her husband Asif Ali Zardari had stopped the government from doing so, saying he didn’t want the body to be desecrated.
He however said an external post-mortem was conducted by taking X-rays that showed no traces of a bullet or shrapnel.
Meanwhile, violence continued throughout the country with the death toll rising to 35 and people continued burning vehicles and targeting government buildings, though the government called out the army in parts of Sindh, Bhutto’s hometown.