By Muhammad Najeeb, IANS
Islamabad : Bilawal, the teenage son of the slain Benazir Bhutto, was Sunday picked to head her Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) following her killing as the country was set to choose a new date for elections set for Jan 8.
In a development mirroring the PPP’s desperate need for a Bhutto tag, it announced that Bilawal, a 19-year-old Oxford student, would chair the party with his father Asif Ali Zardari as co-chairman.
The announcement was made after Bhutto’s will was read out at Garhi Khuda Bux in her hometown Larkana in Sindh province.
The development came as millions remembered the slain two-time former prime minister in prayers across the country where mob violence following her killing Thursday has left 32 people killed and hundreds injured in street violence.
But the storm over her gory death – with the government insisting she was not killed by gunfire or suicide bomber and the opposition ridiculing the claim -raged for the third day Sunday. To add to Islamabad’s woes, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for an international probe into Bhutto’s killing.
A Pakistani television station also contradicted government claims on Bhutto’s death by releasing footage showing a gunman firing at the former prime minister in Rawalpindi Thursday before an accomplice detonated a suicide bomb.
Bhutto, 54, was killed Thursday evening minutes after she addressed an election rally at Liaqat Bagh ground. The assassination evoked violent unrest in Pakistan and intense international condemnation.
In Islamabad, the Election Commission of Pakistan said it will meet at 9.30 a.m. Monday “to review the situation regarding the holding of polls”.
An official said the elections are likely to be postponed as several ECP offices particularly in Sindh were set on fire.
Also, in the last three days the ECP could not be carry out its work because of the mourning and violence in the country following Bhutto’s assassination.
The Pakistan government had earlier said that the Jan 8 election – to fight which Bhutto returned home in October, ending eight long years of exile — would be held as planned.
Millions of Pakistanis took part in the “Rasm-e-qul” ritual prayers in the country Sunday in memory of Bhutto, the first woman leader to govern a Muslim state and one who may well have become prime minister for a third time next month.
The largest of the congregations was held at the Bhutto House in Larkana.
Bhutto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari, son Bilawal, nephew Zuilfikar Ali (Junior) and others went to her grave where they laid floral wreaths and offered prayers for the departed soul.
DawnNews TV showed dramatic exclusive images of a young gunman, wearing sunglasses and dressed in a light-brown sports jacket, firing at Bhutto as she stood atop the sunroof of her SUV while leaving the Liaqat Bagh rally.
The footage showed Bhutto collapsing into her armoured-vehicle before the suicide blast, contradicting official government claims that she recoiled only after the blast and cracked her skull on the sunroof.
The government version, which included only partial footage of the attack, has been met with widespread derision. Bhutto’s senior aides inside the vehicle are adamant that she was shot.
Japanese carmaker Toyota also found fault with the government claim, saying Bhutto could not have been fatally injured even if she did hit her head on the sunroof lever of her Land Cruiser.
An unnamed Toyota official pointed out that the lever could not have caused the head injury as it was installed inside the vehicle and was at least six centimetres from the edge of the sunroof.
At the same time, he did not dispute the fact that there could have been bloodstains on the lever. “This is understandable. If she was hit in the head by a bullet, bloodstains could have been left on the lever.”
Adding to the controversy over Bhutto’s death, a media report said a senior Pakistani police officer had opposed an autopsy on her body although this is mandated in each murder case.
The News quoted an official of the hospital where she was declared dead as saying: “Even if the family of a murder victim refuses to allow the autopsy, no investigation can be completed if doctors do not perform the autopsy and conclusively find the cause of death.”
In Washington, US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for an international investigation into Bhutto’s assassination before providing any more aid to the country.
Pelosi, a Democrat, said the US government should make its assistance to Pakistan conditional to the country’s probe of Bhutto’s killing and cooperation in the anti-terrorism war with the US.
“The refusal by the (Pakistan President Pervez) Musharraf government to accept international assistance in the investigation of the assassination of Bhutto and recent reports that previous US aid to Pakistan has been misspent raise troubling questions about whether those conditions are being met.
“These questions must be addressed by the Bush administration before any additional US aid is sent to the Musharraf government,” she said.