Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Recollections and remembrances

Bhutto too and would often visit him.Bhutto Shaheed was a large hearted than. One can get an idea of his largeheartedness by the fact that even through after resigning from Ayub’sgovernment, when his relations with Ayub were very sour. Ayub Khan’s picturewas not removed from Al- Murtaza.He was so kind in 1976 I was in Ghari Khuda Bux and was injured, when a pistolaccidentally fired. I was admitted to the hospital. The Shaheed and BegumSaheba were informed. The Shaheed immediately called the investigating officersto find out the facts about the incident and gave instruction to the hospitaladministration to take special care of me. Next day he came to Larkana to visit meand staved with me for more than half an hour. Much more than the medicaltreatment I received, it was the effect of his kind visit, which completely cured me.I do not have the words to describe him. His sincerity, love, leadership,statesmanship there are so many aspects to his single personality. 4th April 1979is a dark day in the nation’s history, but for us who served him so closely for sucha long time it as the day when we were almost buried alive. I am lucky to havethe patronage of his daughter, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and his wife BegumNusrat Bhutto Sahiba.I recall the day the great warrior was brought home dead. I was sleeping in myhouse at about 3:00 a.m. on April 4 when I evoke to notice strong lights of fifty tosixty military vehicles on the outskirts of the village. At first I thought they wererehearsing again for the actions they were to take after Mr. Bhutto was to behanged as they had two days earlier, claiming they were normal militaryexercises. The people were quite terrorized then, especially after the policeentered the Bhutto graveyard to take a careful look around. When the policesummoned me out of my house at such an early hour all the village folk-old,young, men and women came out of their houses. All feared that Mr. Bhutto hadeither already been hanged or was soon to be. There was wailing and crying anddesperation in their faces.We must arrange for the burial of Mr. Bhutto, the large number of army andpolice personnel said to me at their temporary headquarters. ‘Show us where thegrave is to be. I was weeping. “Why should we point out the place of burial toyou?” I asked them. “We will perform the final rites by ourselves Mr. Bhuttobelongs to us.”I asked that I be allowed to bring our people to dig the grave, fetch the unbakedbricks to line it, cut the wooden planks to put on top of it, and perform ourreligious recitations. They permitted me only eight men to help.While we got busy with this sad task, military and police vehicles not onlyZulfikar Ali Bhutto, Recollections and Remembrances; Copyright © www.bhutto.org 60