Benazir agreed to be PM under Zia: Fatima

New Delhi, Apr 4:Fatima Bhutto, niece of slain former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, has charged Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and her aunt with involvement in assassination of her father Murtaza Bhutto and said Benazir had agreed to become Prime Minister under military ruler Zia- Ul-Haq.Fatima, who has recently written a book 'Songs of Blood and Sword', which she claims reveals the inside story of the assassination of Murtaza Bhutto, the deep divisions between the Bhutto family and raises serious questions about Benazir Bhutto, made these allegations in an interview with Karan Thapar in Devil's Advocate programme on CNN-IBN.Fatima alleged Zardari had a role in assassination of Murtaza Bhutto while former Prime Minister Benazir was not only involved in the killing but also in the cover up later. She quotes the then Pakistan President Farooq Leghari's interview on Television in which he had said that ''Asif Zardari has the blood of Murtaza Bhutto on his hands and god knows how many other people.'' ''....He (Leghari) was interviewed by various channels of Pakistan. Only recently, in the past three months, he came out and said that Asif Zardari, the current President, went to him, when he was the sitting President and said that this man has to be eliminated.'' Fatima also claimed that Benazir had negotiated with Zia-ul-Haq, who had assassinated her own father and former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, to become the Prime Minister of the country. Narrating the harrowing sequence of incident about the killing of Murtaza, his daughter said after being shot, he was not taken to a proper hospital but to a dispensary, which had a written notice that there was no treatment facilities for emergency cases. ''None of the seven men killed that night were taken to emergency hospital. They were all taken to different locations. They were all taken pass the time when they could have been saved. My father was taken to a dispensary where the doctors had their outpatient facility. It was a place, which had sign outside its front door saying ''no emergency''. It was very clear that that was not a hospital where doctors could be found to save anybody's life. Not just that but the police dropped my father at there and left,'' she said.She said that Murtaza was not registered at the dispensary and the police disposed him ''As if it was an unknown body.'' Regarding Benazir's role, Fatima said she presided over a state flawlessness. ''My father was one of thousands killed under her second government, so, certainly she bears a moral responsibility. And after his murder, my aunt played a strong role in the cover-up. We were forbidden from filing an FIR. All the witnesses were arrested. They had no access to their lawyers, their families. In fact, they were kept in jail till her government fell,'' she said.She said Masood Sharif, who was, at that time, head of the ISI and reported to the office of the Prime Minister, was at the scene of the crime that night. He was several years later inducted into the central committee of Benazir's party. ''Now, to induct a man who has been publicly accused of your brother's murder sends a certain signal,'' Fatima said. (UNI)