By Muhammad Najeeb, IANS
Islamabad : Pakistan stocks crashed Monday as markets opened after three days, just as hopes of stability in the country had plummeted with the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. But peace of sorts returned to the streets.
Long queues of vehicles were seen at petrol and gas stations that also opened Monday morning. Many vehicles were being pushed to the stations as they had run out of fuel during the three-day closure.
India resumed the Attari Lahore Samjhauta Express, and 250 passengers clambered on despite the trouble across the border.
Tension had subsided after the three days of clashes following Bhutto’s death in firing and a suicide blast in Rawalpindi Thursday evening left 44 people dead and public property worth billions damaged.
But the mystery around her death deepened with fresh video evidence that she might have received gunshot wounds seconds before the blast, contradicting government claims that she died after hitting her head against the sunroof lever of her Toyota Land Cruiser.
On Monday, three days after the incident, the country reeled with the impact. In one of the sharpest drops in memory, a key index of the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) declined by five percent or 700 points.
The bourse had closed Thursday just hours before Bhutto’s murder, after which an official three-day period of mourning was announced.
“This is a historic fall and is reflective of the unrest in the entire country,” said Waheed Jan, an Islamabad based broker. He said investors were on a selling spree, causing the decline.
There was effort to make it a business as normal day with many offices reopening after the three days of mayhem. However, as a precaution, the government has ordered that educational institutions would remain shut till Jan 3.
Some private institutions announced that they would reopen only after the Jan 8 elections, which may be postponed.
And though indications are that elections might not be held as scheduled on Jan 8, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) said it would decide on the issue Tuesday after receiving assessment reports from its field offices in the state.
Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif said his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) would contest the elections.
He said he had announced the boycott on Thursday to show solidarity with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). “But now after the PPP has decided to go for polls and also requested us to contest the elections, we have decided to go for the polls too,” he told a press conference, adding that Musharraf must go.
As Pakistanis tried to come to grips with the phase of uncertainty in their country, a new question came up. Would an autopsy on Bhutto’s body become necessary?
Her husband Asif Ali Zardari had told reporters that he had refused a post-mortem on his wife’s body because he did not want her to be “desecrated”. “I know the way hospitals treat bodies while conducting post- mortem.”
However, the PPP has been demanding a probe by an international team of investigators. And that would only be possible after an autopsy.
“No investigation will be possible without an autopsy of the body,” said an official here, adding that the government was in touch with international experts who insist on an “expert autopsy report” to start investigations.
The government has said it was ready to exhume the body if the PPP agrees to it.
Intensifying the mystery, Pakistani television channels have been playing new images providing evidence that she was fired upon thrice.
A clean-shaven man with sunglasses is shown with his hand in his pocket. The man is followed by a person with a white shawl, suspected to be the suicide bomber who blew himself up seconds later. The sniper moves closer to the vehicle and fires three shots while Bhutto is waving to the crowd.
Three gunshots can be clearly heard followed by the sound of the blast, which killed 20 people.
As the gunman fires, Bhutto can be seen falling inside the vehicle through the sunroof.
Political analysts here say that the government has faked the sunroof lever story to cover up a massive security failure.