2020 marks 13 years since former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto died in an untimely and unnatural manner. Benazir Bhutto was the first democratically elected female leader of a Muslim country during a tumultuous life that ended with her assassination.
Historically, it is extremely rare that one finds individuals who spend their whole lives fighting for the betterment of their homelands and then die for the sake of their country as well. Let’s have a look at Benazir’s life and her services for the motherland.
Early Life
Benazir Bhutto was born June 21, 1953, in Karachi, the eldest child of former premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. After completing her early education in Pakistan, she pursued her higher education in the United States.
From 1969 to 1973, she attended Radcliffe College, and then Harvard University, where she graduated with a B.A. degree in comparative government. It was then onto the United Kingdom to study at Oxford from 1973 to 1977. There, she completed a course in International Law and Diplomacy.
Bhutto returned to Pakistan in 1977, and was placed under house arrest after the military coup led by General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq overthrew her father’s government. One year after Zia ul-Haq became president in 1978, the elder Bhutto was hanged after his conviction on charges of authorizing the murder of an opponent.
She inherited her father’s leadership of the PPP. Later, Benazir Bhutto married a wealthy landowner, Asif Ali Zardari, in Karachi on December 18, 1987.
Political life
President Zia died in August 1988 in a mysterious plane crash, leaving a power vacuum at the centre of Pakistani politics. In the ensuing elections, Bhutto’s PPP won the single largest bloc of seats in the National Assembly. She became prime minister on December 1, 1988, heading a coalition government.
Bhutto was unable to do much to combat Pakistan’s widespread poverty, governmental corruption, and increasing crime. In August 1990 the president of Pakistan, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, dismissed her government on charges of corruption and called for new elections.
Bhutto’s PPP suffered a defeat in the national elections of October 1990; thereafter she led the parliamentary opposition against her successor, Nawaz Sharif. In elections held in October 1993 the PPP won a plurality of votes, and Bhutto again became head of a coalition government.
Under renewed allegations of corruption, economic mismanagement, and a decline of law and order, her government was dismissed in November 1996 by President Farooq Leghari.
Voter turnout was low in the 1997 elections, in which Bhutto’s PPP suffered a decisive loss to Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League party. While in self-imposed exile in Britain and Dubai, she was convicted in 1999 of corruption and sentenced to three years in prison. She continued to direct her party from abroad, being re-affirmed as PPP leader in 2002.
Return to Pakistan
Bhutto returned to Pakistan on October 18, 2007, after President Musharraf granted her amnesty on all corruption charges, opening the way for her return and a possible power-sharing agreement.
Bhutto’s homecoming rally after eight years in exile was hit by a suicide attack, killing 136 people. She only survived after ducking down at the moment of impact behind her armored vehicle.
BB’s Assassination
Bhutto was assassinated when an assassin fired shots and then blew himself up after an election campaign rally in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007. The attack also killed 28 others and wounded at least another 100.
The attacker struck just minutes after Bhutto addressed a rally of thousands of supporters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. She died after hitting her head on part of her vehicle’s sunroof — not as a result of bullets or shrapnel, a spokesman for Pakistan’s Interior Ministry said.
Hundreds of thousands of mourners paid last respects to former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on December 28, 2007 as she was buried at her family’s mausoleum in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh Sindh. She was buried alongside her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The shooting and bombing attack on the charismatic former prime minister plunged Pakistan into turmoil. Furious supporters rampaged through several cities, torching cars, trains and stores in violence that left at least 23 dead.
BB’s vision and services
Benazir had a vision for the future and the ability to move forward in the worst circumstances which made her great. She was a great fighter for democracy and a courageous voice for justice and equality around the world.
BB’s efforts to socioeconomically uplift the lives of ordinary people will always be remembered in golden words, as she truly wanted to establish a just and egalitarian society.
The welfare of women and children remained a priority agenda in both of her terms. In addition, valuable contributions were made by her government in the domain of strengthening the defence of the country, including the introduction of missile technology, the expansion of Port Qasim at Karachi, establishment of a nuclear power plant under a bilateral agreement with China, among many others.
