M A I N   N E W S

Bullets did not kill Bhutto: Pak

Larkana/Islamabad, December 28
The Pakistan government today blamed Al-Qaida for the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto hours after the international terror network claimed responsibility for the attack.

On the basis of intelligence reports, the interior ministry said in Islamabad late tonight that Al-Qaida leader Betulla Masood had sent congratulatory messages to his cadre on carrying out yesterday’s assassination.

Meanwhile, ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said bullets were fired just before a human bomber exploded himself at the rally but she was not hit by them.

She neither had bullet nor shrapnel wounds but died due to a fall in her vehicle when a lever of her vehicle, from which she came out to greet her supporters, caused a fracture on her skull.

Cheema said, “There was no foreign element in her body. There is no ambiguity about the fact that there were no pellet wounds or shrapnel wounds in her body.

“Unfortunately the tragedy took place because of the force created by the human bomb explosion that caused her to fall and she was hit by a lever of the sunroof of the vehicle from which she had peeped out to greet supporters.

“It had caused a fracture of her skull. If a bullet or a shrapnel were to hit her it would have hit her on the left side. But she had suffered the fracture on the right side. She was unconscious and was clinically dead by then.”

Cheema said according to the intelligence intercepts Betulla Masood had congratulated his people for carrying this attack at a public rally at Liaqat Ali Bagh in Rawalpindi.

He said Bhutto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari did not want a postmortem to be conducted.

Cheema also produced video footage of Benazir’s final moments in the vehicle through whose sunroof she greeted her supporters. In the footage, he also pointed to a man aiming a gun at her.

Zardari said the Pakistan government was trying to give a twist to the story of his wife’s assassination.

Al-Qaida claimed through a little known Italian news agency AKI in a phone call that it was responsible but security experts reacted to the claim with scepticism because this was not the manner in which Al-Qaida publicises its attacks. FBI spokesman said in Washington that the agency was trying to determine the validity of a purported claim of responsibility by Al-Qaida. — PTI