Murtaza Bhutto

ASP HAYAT'S STATEMENT DEEPENS MYSTERY
By Ghulam Hasnain
KARACHI, Sept 30, 1996: The statement of an injured police officer before a
special medical board on Monday further deepened the mystery surrounding
the Sept 20 shooting near 70-Clifton which claimed the lives of Mir Murtaza
Bhutto and his seven companions.
ASP Shahid Hayat who was wounded in the alleged shoot-out, appeared
before the board at Services Hospital and narrated the event shortly before he
fell on the ground. Mr Hayat told the board he was approaching the armed
guards of Mir Murtaza and was about four-and-a-half feet from them when
some noises from the police force attracted his attention. And according to
him those noises were not those of humans but of loading of AK-47 rifles by
the policemen. It was the click-click of rifles which forced him to turn back
and see what was happening.
It was exactly at that moment when someone from Mir Murtaza's side fired at
him before he could issue any order. The bullet hit him in the leg and he fell
on the ground, he said. ASP Hayat could not say who it was from Mir
Murtaza's side who had fired from behind but the shot, according to him,
triggered a heavy shooting. "I crawled towards one-side of the road and took
a refuge behind a tree. Then I shouted at one of my men and asked them to
bring a police mobile. I was then put in a police mobile and taken to the Aga
Khan Hospital," Mr. Hayat told the medical board.
Mr Hayat did not know what happened afterwards.
After four-and-a-half hours' deliberation, the medical board was of view that
ASP Hayat's injury was neither self-inflicted nor self-suffered and he was
wounded by a bullet coming from Mir Murtaza's direction. Now the question
is if the ASP was approaching Mir Murtaza's guards why the policemen, who
had already ringed the convoy, started loading their guns before any
provocation from Mir Murtaza's side. It appeared from the ASP's statement
that he did not order the policemen to load their rifles and their action even
surprised him and forced him to turn back and look what was happening.
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