Lesson to be learnt from Priyanka’s jail visit: Zardari

Pak parties could learn a lesson on reconciliation from Priyanka's visit to meet the woman involved in killing her father, Zardari has said.

Pakistani political parties could learn a lesson on reconciliation from Priyanka Gandhi’s recent visit to a Vellore jail to meet the woman involved in the 1991 assassination of her father and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the ruling PPP chief Asif Ali Zardari has said.

“After (all these) years, Priyanka Gandhi goes to a jail and meets the very people who were responsible for her father’s death,” he told a news conference in Islamabad recently, referring to Priyanka’s March 19 meeting with Nalini Murugan, who was convicted of involvement in Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination and has been serving life sentence.

The PPP Chairman was responding to a question on why he was now thinking of including the opposition PML-Q — which he had referred to as the ‘qatil’ or killer league after his wife and former premier Benazir Bhutto’s assassination — in his plans for political reconciliation.

Story continues below this ad

“There are good lessons to be learnt from a bigger democracy,” he said, adding that his slain wife used to say that ‘democracy is the best revenge’.

In a recent interview, Zardari said he wanted to avenge Bhutto’s murder on December 27 2007 by changing the ‘course of Pakistan and the system’ and not by sending to the gallows those accused of involvement in her killing.