Murtaza Bhutto

EXCEPT FOR THE DC & SSP, I SAW NONE AT THE
HELIPAD: SDM
H. A. Hamied
KARACHI, Dec. 7, 1996: "Come back Mir, Come back Mir, your mother
wants you, your Fatima wants you, and your Zulfiqar wants you" were the
words in English Ms Ghinwa Bhutto was uttering on the day Mir Murtaza
Bhutto and seven others had been killed in the police firing on Sept 20. These
words were recalled by the SDM Saddar, Mohammad Ali Shah, 41, resident
of flat No. 15, GOR Colony, Bath Island, while testifying on Saturday before a
three-member judicial tribunal inquiring into the circumstances that led to the
murder of the PPP(SB) leader and others.
The witness said the injured was lying on a stretcher at Mideast Hospital in
Clifton, and while holding his feet, his wife had been uttering those words,
and it was then he realised she was the wife of the injured leader and until
then he had not seen her. Then the time was about 10:30 pm when the deputy
commissioner of South had summoned all the SDMs of his district to
assemble on duty at the hospital. Mir Murtaza was bleeding from his neck
and had been in great pain and his utterances were not audible, he said.
He said seven SDMs were summoned on the scene of the incident and six had
turned up on time and the seventh came at 2 am because he was at a marriage
ceremony and could not be contacted. The seventh SDM, Abdul Wahab
Memon, was from Arambagh.
The witness said he first saw the DC South at the hospital when at 11:45 pm
Irfan Qureshi, assistant police surgeon, arrived at the hospital with three
MLOs from JPMC, and he inquired of them if any other body had arrived at
JPMC. At 12:05 am two more injured had been shifted to JPMC and they were
Ayaz Ali and Asghar Ali, both were out of danger. At that moment, the DC
called him near to confer with him at Mideast Hospital and said Mir Murtaza
had died. The DC and Dr Ghaffar Jatoi were in consultation with each other
in the company of Mir Mohammad Shaikh, an advocate of Mir Murtaza,
whether or not the post-mortem should be conducted.
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