Reluctance to uncover the truth questioned

Islamabad: Why are Pakistan's current rulers, given their affinity to Benazir Bhutto, "quite so reluctant to uncover the truth" about her assassination, asked a Pakistani daily, noting, "The uncertainty that persists is unsettling".

The former prime minister was assassinated on December 27, 2007, after a Pakistan People's Party (PPP) rally in Rawalpindi, just two weeks before the scheduled parliamentary elections of 2008.

An editorial in the News International yesterday said: "Her [Benazir's] death changed our history; it may have changed our destiny and is perhaps one reason at least for the pitfalls we have stumbled into. Perhaps, Benazir could have prevented some of this."

It said that the country has to live with the facts — and "some of these are extremely disturbing".

"For one, it is a true irony that even with Bhutto's own PPP in government, even with her husband [Asif Ali Zardari] occupying the presidency and her son [Bilawal] heading the party his grandfather founded, we are no closer than before to solving the riddle of Benazir's murder," the editorial said.

"Indeed we seem further away and need to question why this is the case."

Report undisclosed

The editorial went on to say that a commission the government set up to look into the murder has submitted a report which the PPP top brass has decided to keep a secret. "Essentially we stand rooted at the same spot where we were in 2007. Fingers point in many directions; there is no real evidence to suggest which version is the most accurate. As is also true of so much else in our history, we may never learn the truth."