Pak govt makes U-turn on cause

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In a dramatic U-turn, Pakistan government has “apologised” for claiming that former premier Benazir Bhutto died of a skull fracture after hitting the sunroof of her car during a suicide attack.

Pakistan will delay elections until February to give officials more time to prepare after the unrest that followed Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, a senior election official told AFP on Tuesday.

But with the government facing calls from the United States not to put off the January 8 vote too long and opposition parties arguing against a delay, the official said the election commission could not hold off longer than that.

“Elections will not be delayed beyond February. We expect it to be towards the later part of next month,” the official said.

Caretaker Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz Khan has asked the media and people to “forgive and ignore” comments made by his ministry’s spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema which were slammed by her Pakistan People’s Party as “lies” and led to an uproar at home and abroad.

The Interior Minister made the apology during a briefing for Pakistani newspaper editors on Monday. Punjab province on Tuesday issued a front-page advertisement in newspapers that offered a reward of Rs 1 crore for information about a gunman and a suspected suicide bomber seen in the photos and video footage of the assassination.

The government’s apparent damage control exercise on Cheema’s comments made at a news conference a day after Bhutto was assassinated at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi on December 27, came after TV channels aired privately shot photos and video footage which showed a gunman shooting at Benazir.

The Pakistan People’s Party leader is seen in the footage falling through the sun-roof before the suicide bomber detonated his explosives. The briefing by caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro was also attended by the foreign, interior and information ministers and senior officials.

“Editor after editor lambasted the government for its non-serious attitude towards the tragedy, specially the statement that Bhutto had died by hitting the lever and not (due to) a bullet or shrapnel,” The News reported.

During the briefing, an editor asked why spokesman Cheema had said that a lever on the sun-roof had caused a fatal injury when the manufacturers of the car and Benazir’s husband Asif Ali Zardari had stated that there was no metallic lever that could have caused the wound.

Khan said the spokesman’s comments may have been a mistake as “we are Faujis (soldiers) and we are not so articulate to present our views as you journalists can”. Both the interior minister and spokesman Cheema are retired army officers.

“I am sorry if that happened and please forgive us and ignore the comment,” he told the editors. Earlier, Prime Minister Soomro tried to defend the interior ministry’s spokesman, saying he was just relaying facts that had been told to him, especially about the cause of death.

“We are conducting an investigation and all TV footage, all evidence, that would be available will help in reaching a definite conclusion,” Soomro told the editors.

But the editors asked more questions, especially with reference to the medical report of doctors of Rawalpindi General Hospital who treated Benazir.

They “emphatically pointed out that the report quoted by the spokesman never mentioned the cause of the head injury” to Benazir. The report only said there was a skull fracture which caused cardio-pulmonary arrest, the editors pointed out. Soomro then referred the issue to Interior Minister Khan. He explained in detail the security measures taken and asserted that Benazir had a bulletproof vehicle which could not be damaged by a bomb or bullets.

Once she was inside it, she was secure and police vans were trying to keep her car clear of other vehicles. But when she emerged from the sun-roof she exposed herself to an attack, Khan said.

“Nothing would have happened to her even if every one in the world had wanted to hurt her,” the Minister added. Soomro was repeatedly asked whether he would allow a foreign investigation into the murder but he asserted that Pakistani experts were competent to do the job.

His denial raised questions from the editors about the offer made by President Pervez Musharraf to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to consider foreign help in probing the assassination.

Meanwhile, the advertisement issued by Punjab’s Home Ministry included two photos of the suspected assailant and the severed head of the suspected bomber.

“The public is hereby informed that the two individuals in the above photographs are the accused terrorists in the Liaquat Bagh, Rawalpindi terror attack, which resulted in the death of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and others,” it said.

“The government of Punjab has announced a cash award of Rs 1 crore for lead information and any solid evidence.” The advertisement said the names of persons providing any information would be kept “strictly confidential”. It also sought the cooperation of the people for “dismantling of terrorist network”.

Earlier a Pakistani election official said Tuesday “it looks impossible” for the country to hold elections as scheduled in the wake of the violence that followed the assassination.

However, a final decision would not be made until Wednesday, after the Election Commission consulted all the political parties, commission spokesman Kanwar Dilshad said. Critics have said the commission is stacked with officials loyal to President Pervez Musharraf.

The commission was to make the announcement public later in the day but was holding an urgent meeting Tuesday morning to review security reports from around the country before deciding on the exact date, the official said.

“We want the delay to be minimal. But the election commission needs a realistic amount of time to get things back on track,” he said.

The parliament vote is seen as the next step in a transition to civilian-led democracy in Pakistan under President Pervez Musharraf, a veteran general who only stepped down as head of the army after being re-elected in October.

A wave of violence, arson and looting swept the country after Benazir’s assassination at a campaign rally on Thursday, fuelled by outrage over her death and disbelief at the government explanation of how she died.

At least 58 people were killed, most of them in the southern province of Sindh, the seat of the Bhutto family’s political dynasty where she was laid to rest Friday at a funeral attended by hundreds of thousands of mourners.

Rampaging demonstrators ransacked election offices in several places across the province, destroying voter lists and hampering preparations for the election, the official said.

“The situation in Sindh is volatile,” he said. “It is very difficult for election staff to move around.”

The election commission held an emergency meeting on Monday before Musharraf held four hours of consultations with top aides at the Camp Office, his former military office in the garrison city of Rawalpindi adjacent to the capital.

Several top officials confirmed that the commission decided on Monday to delay the vote, but wanted to assess the security situation in the provinces before deciding how long to postpone it, the official said.

Election commission spokesman Kanwar Dilshad told AFP that the commission was reviewing the provincial reports and would give its assessment later in the day.

While daily life has been returning to normal, the nuclear-armed Islamic nation is still feeling the aftershock of Benazir’s killing. Share prices were down 3.8 percent on Tuesday morning after shedding 4.7 percent on Monday.

The United States, which counts Musharraf as a key ally in the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists, said a delay would be acceptable if the major political parties approved. It was not immediately known if they would do so.

Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is the country’s largest. Her untested 19-year-old son Bilawal has taken over as chairman, with his father Asif Ali Zardari as co-chairman.

Zardari said Monday that the PPP would invite other parties to take a “joint stance” in the event of a postponement.

“If it so happens, this will not be the first time that the dictator runs away from elections,” he said.

Public anger at the death of Benazir, a pro-Western politician with a huge popular following, has mounted since the interior ministry denied her attacker — clearly seen in videos firing a gun at close range — had actually hit her.

It said the former prime minister died banging her head on her car’s sunroof but also that the shooting, followed by a massive suicide attack, had been orchestrated by al-Qaeda.

The PPP has demanded an international inquiry, but officials have said that is out of the question.

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