Murtaza Bhutto

GHINWA HOLDS POLICE RESPONSIBLE FOR MIR'S
MURDER
KARACHI, Feb 24, 1997: Ghinwa Bhutto, chairperson of the PPP (SB), said
here on Monday that her husband had been murdered under a conspiracy.
She said she suspected the police were responsible for the killing and wanted
that Gen Naseerullah Babar, who headed the police force at that time, be
interrogated. She claimed that all culprits involved in the shooting were still
at large.
The 34-year-old widow of Mir Murtaza Bhutto, testifying before a threemember
judicial tribunal investigating the shooting on Sept 20 outside the
Bhutto home at 70-Clifton, said when she asked the then premier, Benazir
Bhutto, why the police had not been charged with murder, she (Ms Bhutto)
had replied that "it would cause law and order problems."
Ms Ghinwa alleged that her sister-in-law (Ms Bhutto) had been applying all
emotional and financial pressures on the family and, therefore, she (Ms
Ghinwa) had sent her two children to Damascus. She said her complaint was
not entertained at the Clifton Police Station and, therefore, she had to
approach the high court to get an FIR registered against the police. For full 45
days, she continued, the Sindh government had resisted, saying the petition
should not be allowed and that a third FIR should not be allowed to be
registered. Ms Ghinwa said the policemen responsible were arrested only
after the high court intervened and allowed her petition for the registration of
an FIR. She claimed the Ms Bhutto had stated "I am not here to argue with
you", when she told the former prime minister that the Mideast Medical
Centre was not equipped to handle a case like Murtaza's.
Ms Ghinwa said she was not an eyewitness to the killing which took place
after shooting started in front of 70-Clifton on Friday but she narrated the
events from the time her husband had decided to contest election in the 1993
for a provincial seat from Larkana, while still in exile. He had contested the
seat and won against the PPP's Munwawar Abbasi. He haddecided to return
to Pakistan after 16 years, on Nov 3, 1993, and when the Syrian president's
plane by which Mir Murtaza was returning home, entered Karachi's airspace,
it was not allowed to land by the government of Ms Bhutto and had to be
diverted to Dubai, Ms Ghinwa alleged. From there, she added, Mir Murtaza
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