Blast from the Past: Benazir sees Zia's hand in attack
Blast from the Past: Benazir sees Zia's hand in attack
The streets of Karachi became a scene of bloody carnage on Thursday.

Paris: Benazir Bhutto on Friday accused supporters of Pakistan's late military ruler Mohammed Zia ul-Haq for the bomb explosion that killed more than 139 people after her arrival at Karachi.

In an interview to the Paris-Match magazine, Bhutto said: "I know exactly who wants to kill me. It is dignitaries of the former regime of General Zia who are today behind the extremism and the fanaticism." The interview was first published on Paris-Match's Internet site.

Zia overthrew Bhutto's father, prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in 1977 and had him hanged two years later. He died in a plane crash in 1988.

A suicide bomb targeting the former Pakistani prime minister's homecoming parade killed 139 people and tipped the troubled country toward crisis on Thursday.

Bhutto was unhurt, narrowly escaping with her life after climbing down into the interior of her vehicle just moments before the bomb and a grenade seconds earlier ripped through the police escort.

The streets of Karachi, packed with hundreds of thousands of her supporters, became a scene of bloody carnage.

It was the worst suicide attack in Pakistan's history, casting an immediate shadow over hopes that her return with the approval of military ruler Pervez Musharraf might bring an end to months of political turmoil.

Blood and body parts were scattered widely across the scene and doctors at hospitals in Pakistan's biggest city struggled to keep pace after the attack, which occurred late on Thursday.

Bhutto's party vowed she would stay in Pakistan to fight general elections in January, seen as a key step to returning the nuclear-armed nation of some 160 million people to civilian rule.

What's your reaction?

Comments

https://rawisda.com/assets/images/user-avatar-s.jpg

0 comment

Write the first comment for this!