Dramatic revelations

Interior Minister Rehman Maliks states report has names of all people involved in Benazir assassination.

Our interior minister is given to making some rather startling revelations now and then. He has now stated that all persons suspected of being involved in the 2007 murder of Benazir Bhutto were under arrest and the investigation report into the case revealed who these assassins were and what their real motives were. There has been a hint of a possible attempt to destabilise the region or the country. It is difficult to say at this point what this is all about or what the connotations made by Mr Malik allude to. He has said the PPP’s central executive committee will decide if the report is to be made public or not. Until now, the report has not been produced before the committee, leading to all kinds of questions being raised. We certainly hope the truth, and the whole truth, about one of the most sensational and tragic assassinations in our political history will come out. As citizens, we deserve to know what happened and why. Benazir was, after all, a leader not only of her own party but of people across the country. Many today continue to mourn her death and also the huge political vacuum it has left behind. More than three years after she was assassinated conjecture continues to surround the issue of what happened and why. There are many theories, and over time they have grown. It is time the truth came out.

We must then hope Mr Malik’s words are a step in this direction. The clearing up of the mystery could help ease the sea of conspiracy we have seen swirl for far too long. The doubts and uncertainties have clouded the political atmosphere. We must hope the report, and all the revelations contained within it, will be put before the committee, so that we can know precisely what Mr Malik means and who the people are whom he says have been held in connection with the Benazir killing, thereby ending the sense of uncertainty that has followed it for so many long months.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 28^th, 2011.