Four things are certain regarding the assassination of Benazir Bhutto atRawalpindi on December 27: First, she stood up through the sunroof of herarmoured vehicle to greet a group of supporters who were shouting sloganspraising her outside the meeting venue as she was leaving the venue. Theaudience at the meeting had been subjected to usual security checks, but notthose outside.
Second, someone in the group opened fire in her direction thrice with arevolver. This has been recorded by an amateur video photographer.
Third, she collapsed inside the car with a head injury. This injury causedher death.
Fourth, there was an explosion, which killed many bystanders, but not theoccupants of the car, who were protected by the armour plates.
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There has been a heated controversy on the following questions:
What caused the head injury? Her associates say it was caused by the bulletsfired. An official of the Interior Ministry claims the bullets missed her andthat the injury was caused by her head striking against a lever of the sunroof.
Who caused the explosion? Was it the person who fired with a revolver afterhe had fired or by a second person? Whoever caused the explosion probably wantedto ensure that the man, who fired with the revolver, would not fall into thehands of the police.
When did the explosion take place? After she had collapsed inside the car orbefore? According to her associates, the explosion occurred after she hadcollapsed. According to the Interior Ministry official, it was before. Theimpact of the explosion pushed her down and her head hit against the lever.
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The only way of resolving this controversy would have been by an autopsy,which would have determined the cause of the head injury and through a forensicexamination of the scene of occurrence, which could have led to the recovery ofthe bullets, if they had not entered her body. Asif Zardari, her widower, hasadmitted that he did not agree to an autopsy because he had no confidence in thepolice. The authorities have admitted that no search for the bullets was carriedout and that the entire scene was washed clean without a forensic examination.
Who could have been responsible for her assassination? There are allegationsand speculation, but no evidence as yet. The involvement of Musharraf and othersenior army and intelligence officers is unlikely. They did not like her, butthey would have been able to marginalise her by rigging the elections. They didnot have to get her killed. Moreover, if they had wanted to have her killed,they would not have done it at Rawalpindi, where deniability would be weak.
The involvement of pro-jihadi junior and middle level officers is a strongerpossibility. The investigation into the attempts to kill Musharraf at Rawalpindiin December, 2003, brought out the involvement of some junior Army and Air Forceofficers, who had been allegedly won over by Al-Qaida and the Jaish-e-Mohammad.(JEM).
The strongest possibility is the involvement of Al-Qaidaand/or pro-Al-Qaidajihadi organisations with the complicity of junior and middle level army andintelligence officers. Pakistan has many jihadi terrorist organisations. It hasalso dozens of angry individuals who have been carrying out suicide strikes inreprisal for the commando action in the Lal Masjid of Islamabad in July last.
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All of them had a strong motive for wanting to kill her because she was awoman and, according to them, the daughter of a Shia. They also viewed her asthe cat’s paw of the US. Of these organisations, only the anti-ShiaLashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ) has a demonstrated capability for a terrorist strike inKarachi and Rawalpindi and for using with deadly accuracy a hand-held weapon aswell as a suicide bomber. The LEJ has some excellent sharp-shooters recruitedfrom among ex-servicemen.
In the last 10 years, it has assassinated dozens of Shia personalitiesthrough sharp-shooters firing from moving motor-cycles. The JEM had operated inRawalpindi, but not in Karachi. All other organisations, including the JEM, Al-Qaidaand the Taliban of Baitullah Mehsud feel more comfortable with a suicide bomberthan a hand-held weapon.
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Before coming to Rawalpindi, Benazir had addressed a meeting at Peshawar,which has been a hotbed of jihadi terrorists. They didn’t try to kill herthere. They struck her at Rawalpindi probably because they had more localsupport in the security establishment there and felt more comfortable operatingthere.
That there are sleeper cells in Rawalpindi, where the General Headquarters ofthe Army are located would be evident from the following: Khalid Sheikh Mohammadof Al-Qaida, who had allegedly orchestrated the 9/11 strikes in the US homeland,was arrested there in March,2003, in the house of a woman leader of theJamaat-e-Islami with relatives in the Army.
Of the three post-9/11 attempts to kill Musharraf, one was in Karachi and twowere in Rawalpindi. Last year, there were two successful suicide attacks againstthe ISI staff in Rawalpindi and two unsuccessful suicide strikes targeting theGHQ. The assassination of Benazir was the seventh terrorist strike in Rawalpindisince 2003 and the fifth during 2007.
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After the Lal Masjid raid in July last, suicide terrorism in Pakistanincreased from six in 2006 to 55 in 2007. Most of them have remained undetected.Will the Benazir case be detected with the help of the Scotland Yard? Let uskeep our fingers crossed.
B. Raman is additional secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt ofIndia
