LARKANA: Dr Safdar Abbasi, general secretary of Grand Democratic Alliance, and his spouse Ms Naheed Khan, former political secretary to Benazir Bhutto, have said that a host of questions about the PPP chairperson’s assassination remain unanswered and uninvestigated to this day.

Once the most popular political party of the country, Pakistan Peoples Party had now shrunk to only a few districts of Sindh and the party was fast losing its popularity by each passing day, said Dr Abbasi.

The couple was talking to reporters outside Bhuttos’ mausoleum in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh Bhutto village after laying wreaths on the graves of their leaders and offering dua on Thursday.

Dr Abbasi said that it was sad even after passage of 17 years they had no knowledge about the real killers of Benazir Bhutto, whose assassination had created a political vacuum in the country. At present, there was no leader in the country to give it a new direction, he said.

“We left it to the United Nation’s report on Benazir’s murder, which unveiled many things and was later converted into a fact-finding commission,” he said.

He accused PPP of showing slackness in investigation of the murder case and said Yousuf Raza Gilani took oath as prime minister on March 25, 2008, and later Asif Ali Zardari became president but they did nothing during the five-year rule. In all, PPP had ruled Sindh for 17 years but the party was still undecided about the Benazir Bhutto murder case, he said.

He said that even the letter she (Benazir Bhutto) had written to Gen Musharraf was yet to be probed. “In fact, we are still standing where we were. We must know what were the reasons behind her writing the letter,” he said.

Dr Abbasi, who remained political secretary to Benazir Bhutto, said that people would definitely ask PPP leadership about the reasons. PPP was once a big political party but it had now shrunk to only a few districts of Sindh and it was fast losing its popularity, he said.

Ms Khan, who also remained political secretary to Benazir Bhutto, said that her leader returned to Pakistan with firm resolve to serve people and it was she who fearlessly unfurled Pakistani flag over Swat when terrorists ruled the roost in the valley. People always looked at her as their last ray of hope, she said.

Benazir looked different and greatly matured on her return, she said, adding that Benazir Bhutto’s assassination was a black stain on history as a host of questions still remained unanswered and uninvestigated about it. However, history would not make any compromises and would certainly unmask faces of her real killers, she said.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2024