PPP demands inquiry into Benazir’s assassination

"We demand a complete investigation to find out who was behind the attack," PPP's deputy chief Makhdoom Amin Fahim said in Islamabad on Friday

The Pakistan People’s Party today demanded an inquiry into the assassination of its chief Benazir Bhutto, who died after being shot by a suicide attacker who blew himself him up near the venue of an election rally in Rawalpindi.

“We demand a complete investigation to find out who was behind the attack,” PPP’s deputy chief Makhdoom Amin Fahim told a news conference in Islamabad on Friday.

“Bhutto’s family and the party should be informed about the investigation,” he said. The PPP has decided to observe 40 days mourning.

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“We are in the shock and we are mourning,” Fahim said when asked if the PPP will still take part in the January 8 parliamentary polls. A decision on this issue will be taken after consulting Bhutto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari.

He said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had phoned him and conveyed condolences on behalf of her government.

Fahim was with Bhutto in a bulletproof car when the attacker fired three shots and then blew himself up. She was waving to people from the vehicle’s sun-roof at the time.

“Benazir was hit as she waved to PPP workers who were chanting slogans in her favour. If Benazir did not go out of the car, she would have been saved,” he said.

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Bhutto was taken to the nearby Rawalpindi General Hospital where she was declared dead following emergency surgery.