United Nations: A possible link between
Benazir Bhutto`s "independent" position on improved relations
with India with its implications for the Kashmir dispute, and
her assassination has been drawn by a UN investigation made
public today.
The brutal killing of the 54-year-old Bhutto in a gun
and suicide attack outside a park in Rawalpindi in December
2007 could have been "prevented" but the then military ruler
Pervez Musharraf`s government had failed to protect her
despite serious threats, according to the report.
The 65-page report by a three-member independent
panel headed by Chile`s UN ambassador Heraldo Munoz was handed
over to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. The
investigation was undertaken at the behest of the Pakistan
government.
Unable to pinpoint who killed Bhutto, the panel said
her assassination was "shrouded in mystery" and recommended
the setting up of a "truth commission" to find who murdered
Pakistan`s first woman Prime Minister.
Such a Commission should follow "all leads and
reasonable hypothesis, including Al Qaeda, Taliban and members
of the so-called "establishment" consisting of elements of
military commanders, ISI, allied political parties and
business partners, it said.
The damning report underlines that Bhutto faced
threats from several sources, including Al-Qaeda, Pakistani
Taliban, other Jihadist groups and "establishment".
Among the positions taken by Bhutto that "touched"
the "establishment`s" concerns was "her independent position
on the urgent need to improve relations with India, and its
implications for the Kashmir dispute, which the military had
regarded as its policy domain."
Another source of concern to the "establishment" was
Benazir`s "alleged willingness to compromise Pakistan`s
nuclear programme and allow greater Western access to it."
Many sources interviewed by the Commission "believe
that the establishment was threatened by the possibility of Ms
Bhutto`s return to the public office and that it was involved
in or bears some responsibility for her assassination," the
report said.
This analysis, it said, is based on "years of
observation and knowledge of how the establishment works,
although they do not offer any specific evidence with regard
to the Bhutto assassination."
The report severely rebuked Pakistan`s spy agency ISI
for interfering in criminal investigations after Bhutto`s
assassination. ISI and the police had "deliberately failed" to
properly probe the murder.
The investigators said that besides passing on
messages of the serious threats to Bhutto, no proactive
measures were taken by the authorities to neutralise the
danger.
"This pervasive involvement of intelligence agencies
in the diverse spheres, which is a open secret, has undermined
the rule of law and distorted civil-military relations," Munoz
said, noting that the ISI played a pervasive and clandestine
role in every aspect of Pakistani society.
The panel held that after the suicide attack, Bhutto
was left vulnerable in a severely damaged vehicle to hospital
while the backup bullet proof Mercedes departed prematurely.
There was no autopsy carried out on Bhutto in the Rawalpindi
hospital on the orders of the police chief.
PTI
