Waiting for the UN

by Aitzaz Ahsan

Addressing a press conference after the Nato Foreign Ministers’ Conference in Brussels on March 5, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: “We must recognize that one tiny, remote corner of the world — the borders of Pakistan — is the nerve centre for extremists who planned 9/11, the bombings in Madrid and London, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the recent carnage in Mumbai”. (The NEWS, March 06). She may be right about all the others, but the shahadat of Benazir Bhutto seems to fall in a category by itself.

There certainly are some significantly peculiar features of the assassination of Shaheed Bibi that stand out at once. It cannot, therefore, be equated with the other equally morbid crimes. Mrs Clinton needs to be informed of these telltale aspects, which distinguish the assaults on Shaheed Bibi’s life.

One most jarring feature is that the crime scene was washed within an hour of the assassination. Who could have decreed such a washout, and why? Surely do not the terrorists themselves. It must be some one in the state and administration.

That the design of washing the crime scene is evident from the fact that this was not the first such deliberate destruction of material evidence. On October 18, 2007 in Karachi there were two blasts around her truck in the procession that had received Bibi. She narrowly escaped but as many as 180 men were martyred. It was a gory scene. But, as she herself wrote in her book: ‘Reconciliation’ (p 14) she was shocked later to learn that “Instead of the site being cordoned off to protect evidence, it was scrubbed clean within hours and the evidence was destroyed. No one from the police or the government was collecting testimony from the victims of the attack. A cover-up seemed to be under way from the very first moments of the attack.”

The terrorists referred to by Mrs Clinton could, of course, have done the deed. But who was capable of covering up for the killers? This willful destruction of evidence was repeated on December 27, 2007 at Liaquat Bagh. The first questions thus are about who and why? Who ordered the washout of all the evidence twice over at two distinct crime scenes and why?

It would not be very difficult to discover the person responsible. Now that the doctor in-charge of the Emergency 1122 has identified, in Geo’s Capital Talk, the police officer who directed the washout, it is easy to climb up the ladder. Who ordered him, and under whose initial orders? And so on all the way up to wherever the buck stops. QED.

Destruction of evidence is itself a very serious crime. When a murder takes place even in the remotest village in this country, the crime scene is preserved for days until it has been thoroughly examined, measured and mapped. Footprints are carefully preserved for days in cases of theft and housebreak.

Then the second question: why were the crime scenes washed after such horrendous crimes? If you keep in mind the significance of the telltale cell-phone chip in the investigations into the attempts on General Musharraf, it is perhaps easy to discern why.

After the twin but aborted suicide attempts on General Musharraf on December 24, 2003, just beyond Chaklala Bridge in Rawalpindi, the crime scene was sealed for several days. Not a fly was allowed inside the cordoned area. Nothing was touched or moved except by experts. The area was minutely fine-combed. Finally one telling piece of evidence was found: a cell phone chip. The miniscule find was crucial. It led to the identification of the perpetrators of the crime who were arrested, tried by a military court and sentenced. That one chip did it all. The investigation concluded within 2 to 3 weeks. (Refer ‘In the Line of Fire’ by Pervez Musharraf, p 249).

In stunning contrast, and within an hour of the assassination of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto to the shock of all the viewers glued to their television sets, fire fighters were washing the site with powerful hoses like they did not do to put out the fire in Ghakhar Plaza with people inside. In the not so distant Liaquat Bagh they were certainly making sure that no telltale phone chip was recovered.

Another question is: how were 21 dead bodies buried without a single autopsy? That is not possible even in the most ordinary murder case. There has to be a postmortem report. That is because the dead body is the surest piece of evidence. Who pressured the doctors to hand over as many as 21 dead bodies without autopsies? Again, interrogate the senior police officials present and get to the bottom of the mystery.

The case of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto was, of course, different. Too much attention is focused on a lack of autopsy on her dead body. Regarding her there was a charged and emotional atmosphere at the RGH. Let her rest in peace. There is no way that any further probe should be allowed with respect to her. But what about the others, particularly those about whom there is evidence that the deaths were not due to the bomb blast? These could have been exhumed.

In February 2008 a private TV channel, and now several more detailed analyses by Geo’s Hamid Mir, Geo’s Dr Shahid Masud and the anchorpersons of many other TV channels, have blown the lid of the ‘death by bomb blast’ theory. Injured eyewitnesses have testified that the dead bodies bore evidence of multiple firearm injuries on vital parts such as foreheads of several of the dead. They also pointed out the spots from which the shots had been fired. Multiple bullet wounds in a bomb blast on several dead bodies would indicate a ring of sharp shooters positioned at strategic vantage points. Officials grilled by Dr Shahid Masood have cut sorry figures. The media has done more than the investigators to track the telltale footprints.

Evidence of the multiple fires hitting different people would lend some credence to the theory that the bomb was meant only to incapacitate the bombproof vehicle necessitating the inmates to transfer to another vehicle. She, and others around her, would then be shot by the sharpshooters. That she came out of the escape hatch herself, according to this belief, was fortuitous for the assailants.

A private TV channel more recent investigative report has carried another stunning piece of evidence. Its footage of the tragedy conclusively shows that an injured Bibi had already fallen down into the open hatch before the bomb blast. There is thus no question of her having died of blast shrapnel or of a consequential impact with any lever or car part. The projectile that killed her was thus none other than a bullet fired at her.

But could it be a bullet fired at by the man shown in some video footage aiming a pistol at her? Unlikely. He stood behind her well towards her left. The medical report certifies that she was hit on the right side of her head. Obviously there were other well-positioned hit men around.