By IANS,
Islamabad : Two members of a UN technical assessment team have visited the site in Rawalpindi where former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in 2007, a media report said Friday.
The UN officials went to the site at Liaquat Bagh Thursday to assess security arrangements in the area ahead of a visit by a three-member UN commission appointed to probe the “facts and circumstances” of Bhutto’s assassination, Geo TV reported, citing police sources.
The officials took photographs of the site, made sketches and also examined the stage where the former Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader delivered her last speech, the source said.
After their inspection of the site, the officials were also briefed by top police officials at Islamabad.
More than 15 vans of the anti-terrorist squad, Islamabad police and other security agencies accompanied the UN officials during their visit. Media was not allowed at the site, the report said.
Bhutto, the first woman prime minister of a Muslim country, who had gone on self-imposed exile in Dubai in 1998 and returned in October 2007 to campaign for her party in parliamentary elections, was killed in a gun and bomb attack at a rally in Rawalpindi Dec 27, 2007.
Investigations carried out by then president Pervez Musharraf’s government blamed Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani Taliban commander who operates in the lawless tribal areas of northwest region. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials also agreed that Mehsud was the most likely culprit.
London’s Scotland Yard was called in to determine whether Bhutto had died because of the gun shot wound or by hitting the sunroof of her vehicle. The British findings in favour of her having hit the sunroof were rejected by her party.
Bhutto’s supporters, not satisfied by Pakistani investigations, have hinted that Musharraf and his allies were involved in the murder. When her husband Asif Ali Zardari became president, he asked the UN to carry out an independent investigation.
The commission will perform “fact finding activities in Pakistan and abroad”, according to the office of the UN secretary general.
Its final report will be presented to UN chief Ban Ki-moon within six months. The findings will be shared with the Pakistani government and the Security Council “for information”.