Taliban had hand in Benazir Bhutto's assassination: Probe

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was responsible for the assassination of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, concluded a probe carried out by the country's Federal Investigation Agency.

The agency is likely to submit its report before an anti-terrorism court October 30, Dawn reported on Tuesday.

The investigation report has accused slain TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud of masterminding Bhutto's murder.

Bhutto was assassinated on December 27, 2007 after addressing an election rally in the northern Pakistani city of Rawalpindi. A teenaged shooter was seen aiming for her head in the CCTV footage before a powerful suicide blast killed at least 24 people participating in the rally.

The interior ministry at that time had accused Taliban of plotting to kill Bhutto while the doctors had said that 'her head banged against the lever of the sunroof which caused her death'.

Sources said that the agency had not been able complete its investigation earlier due to three absconders - Abdur Rehman, Saddam and Faiz Mohammad.

The report now says that the three absconders were killed in a military operation in tribal areas.

Five TTP member, who have been arrested, are Rafaqat, Hussain, Sher Zaman, Aitzaz Shah and Abdul Rashid.

Khalid Mehmood who led the team that probed the case told the daily that its report will be presented before the court October 30.

The probe team had earlier decided to send a questionnaire to the interior minister since he could not be summoned or interrogated as he is a minister. However, no questionnaire was eventually sent to him.

Ashfaq Anwar, who was head of Rawalpindi's Elite Force at the time of the killing and was responsible for Bhutto's security, has gone to Britain on a scholarship, the media report said.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/38921" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-4971dca32ec03b505a790c0d4b3af4aa" value="form-4971dca32ec03b505a790c0d4b3af4aa" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="81938685" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.