Who fired those other bullets? Nirupama Subramanian
Some unanswered questions from Benazir Bhutto's assassination.
A supporter of the former Pakistan Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, inspects a body after the attack that killed her and many others in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007.
At least five activists of the Pakistan People's Party who were killed during the December 27, 2007 attack on Benazir Bhutto died of gunshot wounds, pointing to the presence of more than one gunman at the site of her assassination, and contrary to the government's claim that only three shots were fired, the party says.
The PPP says that loose ends such as the suspected presence of multiple gunmen, the build-up of a crowd near the exit gate of Rawalpindi's Liaquat Bagh where she was killed, an abrupt change in the route of her departure, and the infamous hosing down of the site within hours of the attack, are pointers to a wider conspiracy.
Refusing to accept the government's theory that Benazir's killing was ordered by the Waziristan-based and Al-Qaeda-linked warlord Beithullah Mehsud, the party has been pressing for a United Nations-appointed international commission to investigate all aspects of the assassination.
In a soon-to-be released book, Benazir has written that she had intelligence information from a "friendly Muslim country" that four terrorist groups were out to get her, including one that owes allegiance to Osama bin Laden's son Hamza, and another to Mehsud. But the PPP said that far from corroborating the government's version of who was responsible for her killing, it highlighted the need for a wider investigation.
"Our demand has gained momentum with this revelation. Even if it is Beithullah Mehsud or Taliban or Al-Qaeda, the kind of sophisticated attack that was carried out indicates that behind them there must have been some hidden hands, and we need to expose them. The basic issue is who motivated, inspired and financed these people," said Farahtullah Babar, spokesman for PPP co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari.
Scotland Yard assistancePresident Pervez Musharraf invited Scotland Yard to assist in the investigation, hoping this would placate the PPP and the international clamour for a transparent enquiry. But the party said that while it would cooperate with the British detectives, their terms of reference — to ascertain the precise cause of death — were such as to make their assistance meaningless. In interviews with The Hindu, some party workers said there were several unanswered questions to which the police had paid no attention as yet. Chief among them is the cause of death of the others who died. It has been assumed that all the 22 who died on the spot were killed in the suicide blast that followed the gun shots. But the PPP says it is not that open-and-shut.
After the grief and shock that immediately followed Benazir's killing, party workers said they started getting information from families of some dead workers that their bodies had bullet wounds, even though some of them were not in the line of fire of the gunman seen in the widely televised video footage of the killing.
Ghulam Murtaza Satti, a PPP candidate in the February 18 election, said the family of a party activist in his Murree constituency had informed him that a doctor at the Rawalpindi district hospital had told them he died of a bullet.
Mazhar Hussain Satti, a resident of Kotli Sattian village in Murree, had gone to the Liaquat Bagh meeting with his two brothers. According to Mr. Murtaza Satti, the two brothers who survived the attack told him Benazir's vehicle had gone past them when the attack took place. They were behind the vehicle to the left side of it, and even claim to have seen the man in the light brown sports jacket seen in the video footage taking aim at Benazir with a pistol. They said he was in front of them.
Yet the 25-year-old Mazhar had fallen dead seconds before the blast. The wounds from the blast of the other two brothers were so minor they were able to leave the hospital the same evening. They told Mr. Murtaza Satti that a doctor informed them that their brother had died of a bullet wound. "I have informed four or five people in the party about this. I told them that Scotland Yard should be told about it. I also informally mentioned it to the SSP of Rawalpindi when I met him somewhere, but he said the matter had not come to the notice of the police," Mr. Murtaza Satti said.
Ibne Muhammed Rizvi, who runs the PPP's Islamabad office, said he knew of at least four other young party activists who died of bullet wounds.
Zaheer Khan, one of Benazir's bodyguards, is seen in the video footage hanging on to the back of her white armoured sports utility vehicle (SUV), and was among those killed. According to Mr. Rizvi, the family told him Zaheer had a bullet wound at the centre of his forehead. "The gunman in the video could not have hit him on the forehead, because Zaheer was behind him to his right. The bullet had to come from somewhere in front of the vehicle," said Mr. Rizvi. He alleged that it came from an under-construction building opposite the exit gate.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, named after ZAB, was also in Benazir's personal security squad. He was standing on the running board of the SUV at front left. According to his family, he had three bullet wounds on his body. Zulfikar's nephew Babar said in a telephone interview from his home in Faisalabad that the Rawalpindi district hospital where the body was taken, did not conduct a post-mortem.
"They just said 'take it away, take it away, the situation is bad.' It was only when we were bathing the body for burial that we saw the holes. I saw them myself — one on top of the head, one near the eye and one on the chest, close to the heart," Mr. Babar said, adding that below the torso, the body had been more or less destroyed by the blast. Mr. Babar said a doctor from a local hospital called Elite who was assisting in preparing the body said the holes were bullet wounds.
Asif Samar of the Pakistan Student's Federation, the PPP's youth wing, was on the left side of the vehicle and was possibly the only one in the brown-jacketed sharpshooter's line of fire. He had a bullet in the back of his head.
Sajjid Ali, a cadre who had come from Kotli in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to attend the rally, was well behind the vehicle, but his body had a bullet wound on the chest.
"It tells you that bullets were flying from all directions," said Mr. Rizvi.
Dawn News television reported on January 12 that two guns were recovered from the site — a .30 bore gun and a 9 mm pistol. According to the TV channel, forensic experts had determined that shots were fired at Benazir from the .30 bore. Two empties and a misfired bullet recovered from the site match the .30 calibre gun. No bullets had been fired from the 9 mm pistol.
It is possible that the same person was carrying both weapons, or that one of them was on the suicide bomber who blew himself up after the sniper fired — assuming these were two separate men.
But that still leaves the mystery of the wound on the right side of Benazir's head, which doctors said was the only wound on her body, and the one that killed her. The gunman in the video was on the left side of the vehicle, and the bombing also took place on the same side.
The Interior Ministry said only three shots were fired at Benazir, but claimed she did not die either from the bullets or bomb shrapnel but from hitting her head on a car lever located on the right side of the sun roof as she ducked inside. While even President Musharraf has played down the car lever theory, and conceded that she may have died of a bullet, PPP leaders have spoken of more than one bullet wound on her body.
Confusing situationMr. Farahtullah Babar said it was to clear the fog of confusion that the party was asking for a wider investigation by a neutral international commission. "It is very intriguing where the bullets were coming from. It looks like the person we saw in the video footage and the suicide bomber may have been decoys, even though they caused a lot of damage. There could have been more than one sniper, may be two, three or even four," he said. "There was cross-fire. This is one aspect that needs to be investigated."
No post-mortems were done on any of the bodies. Several other aspects of the case are bothering the PPP. Mr. Rizvi said he was present at a meeting called by the Rawalpindi District Co-ordination Officer to discuss security and traffic arrangements for the meeting, where the route Benazir's convoy would take after the meeting, exiting from Liaquat Bagh and out of Rawalpindi, was finalised. Several senior police officials were present at this meeting.
Different route takenMr. Rizvi said it continued to puzzle him that the police pilots leading the convoy turned right outside the gate instead of left, the route that had been decided at the meeting. He said he had also drawn the attention of one of the officers present at the meeting more than once to a number of people in civilian clothes loitering near the VIP parking space before Benazir arrived at the venue.
"I was told, 'we'll see, we'll see.' The police were taking it totally easy," said Mr. Rizvi, adding that when he asked the men who they were, they said they were "on duty." "What duty is what I would like to know," he said.
Mr. Rizvi said the PPP had not gone to the police with the information of bullet wounds on the bodies of its cadres as the party had already made it clear that it would not participate in a flawed investigation. Mr. Babar said no one from the police had approached the party yet. "The question of cooperation can come only if they are willing to listen to us."
A report by Scotland Yard on its findings is awaited. Aidan Liddle, spokesman for the British High Commission in Islamabad, said the Yard would submit its findings to the government of Pakistan "soon," and the detectives would also return.
But he refused to say when, or if, they planned further investigations.
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