Benazir Bhutto assassination: Who opened the hatch and slowed the vehicle?

Senator Safdar Abbasi refutes that the driver or someone next to Bhutto could have opened the hatch.

LAHORE: Important questions on the sequence of events that led to the assassination of Pakistan’s first woman prime minister and leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Benazir Bhutto were raised in the Point Blank programme hosted on Express News by anchor Mubasher Lucman on Wednesday.

Senator Safdar Abbasi, who was the guest on the show, was asked who had opened the hatch through which Bhutto raised her head and exposed herself to her assassins. Abbasi replied he did not remember but speculated that bodyguard Khalid Shehenshah “might have done so.” He refuted the possibility that the driver or someone next to Bhutto could have opened the hatch as this was not possible.

Abbasi also denied that he had slowed the progress of the cavalcade as it left the grounds of Liaquat Bagh by taking the microphone and raising slogans on which party supporters gathered around Bhutto’s vehicle. Programme anchor Lucman commented that it was the slowing of the vehicle and the opening of the hatch that eventually led to the attack on the former premier.

Giving details of the seating in the vehicle, Abbasi said that his wife Naheed Khan and PPP leader Amin Fahim sat on either side of Bhutto. In the rear of the vehicle, he along with Khalid Shahenshah and an attendant, Razzaq, shared the seat. In the front, the security chief sat alongside the driver. Abbasi said that there was firing before the suicide bomb attack. “I don’t know who opened the hatch of the vehicle. It was not my responsibility. It may have been opened by Khalid Shehenshah,” he said.

Lucman told Abbasi that it was his raising of slogans that slowed the movement of the vehicles but Abbasi replied that the mike was handed to him by Ms Bhutto herself to raise party slogans.

Abbasi recalled that it was when these slogans were being raised that Ms Bhutto raised her head through the hatch to acknowledge party supporters.

Two shots were fired from the left side following which Ms Bhutto tried to sit down and at the same moment a  blast took place in which Ms Bhutto hit her head on the latch, said Abbasi.

He also said that the video shows the firing came from the left side and “this may not have hit her. Which bullet hit her remains a mystery.”

Anchor Lucman also told Abbasi that his wife, Naheed Khan, was in constant touch with the authorities and it was they who said that a post mortem not be done. But Abbasi denied this and said Naheed Khan was in no position to rule out a post mortem.

On the issue, Abbasi said that the family of Ms Bhutto, specifically Mr Zardari, should have had the post-mortem done or the police should not have released the body without doing the post-mortem.

Abbasi also said that allegations against him and his wife, Naheed Khan, were false. “There were no investigations by Ms Bhutto against me or my wife.”

The anchor also called party member Akhlaq Guddu during the programme who alleged that Ms Naheed Khan had taken Rs10 lakh from him (Guddu) to have a party seat awarded. “I was supposed to pay Rs5 lakh more. I am ready to swear on the Holy Quran that this is what happened.”

Abbasi said this was a false charge but clearly stuttered as he said this.

Abbasi said that Naheed Khan’s party ticket was not cancelled by Ms Bhutto. “Naheed had withdrawn it,” he revealed.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 23^rd, 2010.