It has been 16 years since former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a brutal suicide attack on December 27, 2007.
Bhutto, daughter of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was born in Karachi in 1953. Her political career started after the judicial murder of her father. Benazir formally stepped into practical politics by establishing the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD). In consequence, she was held in the jail in solitary confinement.
Post Zia-ul-Haq’s death, Bhutto came back from exile, campaigned for the elections, and became the first female Prime Minister of the Muslim world on December 2, 1988. At 35, she was also the youngest elected Prime Minister in the world. She became Premier for the second time in 1993 and remained in exile during the military regime of Parvez Musharraf.
In her book “Reconciliation” she wrote, “I suffered the punishment of my father’s arrest, imprisonment, and murder, and I knew that such wounds of the soul never heal. I was ready to do anything to spare my children from the pain I endured at my father’s death. However, this was the only thing I could not do.”
Upon her arrival back in Pakistan in October 2007, she survived a suicide attack that took the lives of hundreds of supporters but Bibi remained unfazed and went on with her campaign. In every meeting, she used to declare, “I have risked my life for democracy in Pakistan.”
She became the first high-profile victim of terrorism. The plague of terrorism is rampant again and the controversy around her death stands out as one of the leading factors behind the deficit of trust between the masses and the leaders.
“With the country facing what is perhaps the most difficult and testing time in its history, the loss of Benazir Bhutto is felt more than ever. The long shadow of despotism is hanging over the country yet again…She had the intellectual capacity to engage with even her strongest critics, a quality rarely found in our political leaders. Her loss is more than that of a political leader. She came to symbolise the unity of an uneasy federation. Her death exacerbated political divisions and polarisation,” senior journalist and author Zahid Hussain sheds light on the contribution of the iconic leader.
