KARACHI/ISLAMABAD: Slain prime minister Benazir Bhutto is being remembered on her 14th death anniversary on Monday.
Remember, remember, the 27th of December.💔 #salaambenazir pic.twitter.com/wplwuCyiN8
— BilawalBhuttoZardari (@BBhuttoZardari) December 26, 2021
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) have finalised arrangements for a large public gathering in Bhutto’s hometown of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh in the Larkana district.
The meeting is expected to be addressed by PPP Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, his sister Aseefa Bhutto-Zardari, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah and his advisor on works and services Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, among others.
A large number of PPP leaders, activists and supporters will arrive to pay homage to the late politician.
A documentary, recording the life and achievements of Bhutto, will also be played on the occasion. Several camps have been set up at the site to accommodate visiting leaders and workers from across the nation, including Gilgit-Biltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJ&K).
The party has announced to observe the day by ensuring strict adherence to coronavirus-related standard operating procedures (SOPs).
Benazir became the first female prime minister of Pakistan — and the first woman to lead a Muslim nation — in 1988. She went on to serve two terms as the prime minister of the nation.
During her career, Bhutto was celebrated in the west as a beacon of democracy and much-feted for her glamorous reputation. People magazine named her one of the world’s 50 most beautiful people.
In the region, she was equally idolised by supporters as a champion for women’s rights and attacked by opponents for corruption, incompetence and nepotism.
Born into an aristocratic Karachi family, Bhutto studied at Cambridge, Harvard and Oxford. She took over the reins of the PPP in 1987, years after its founder, her father, was executed by Gen Zia ul-Haq.
After her last term ended in 1996, besieged by corruption allegations, she fled the country, only to return years later in 2007 to public celebrations.
It was during one of her public rallies, leading up to the 2008 elections, that Bhutto was first attacked by terrorists who had planted two bombs in the crowd. Bhutto survived that attack, which killed 149 people, but in another rally two months later, on December 27 in Rawalpindi, her car came under fire, before a suicide bomber detonated nearby.
Bhutto died in her car under circumstances that were later disputed. An initial investigation claimed she died from fracturing her skull on the sunroof latch in the blast. However, her party denied those claims, insisting that she died from gunshot wounds.
The police officers are the only two people to have been convicted of Bhutto’s murder. Saud Aziz, then police chief of Rawalpindi, was found guilty of security negligence, and for damaging evidence by having the attack site hosed down soon after the attack. By failing to take adequate security measures, Aziz abetted the crime, public prosecutor Azhar Chaudhry told Guardian in 2017.
Khurram Shehzad, a former police superintendent, was also sentenced for mishandling the crime scene.
Seven Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants who were under accusation in the case were killed in military operations since 2007, including its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a drone attack in 2009.
