A majority of urban Pakistanis believe that the person killed by US special forces during a raid in the garrison city of Abbottabad on Monday was not Osama bin Laden, according to a survey.
The online survey, conducted by global opinion pollster YouGov and Polis at Cambridge University, revealed that a staggering 66 per cent of Pakistanis think the person killed by US Navy SEALs in a compound about 80 km from Islamabad was not bin Laden.
Indian Express on Saturday quoted YouGov as having said that the survey focussed on more educated respondents in the cities of Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore.
“The fact that this survey excluded rural and less educated demographic groups actually makes the results more striking,” the organisers of the poll said.
The survey further revealed that 48 per cent of Pakistanis think bin Laden was not a true Muslim leader, 35 per cent believe he was a mass murderer compared with 42 per cent who disagreed, and 35 per cent believe he had declared war on Pakistan compared with 45 per cent who disagreed.
About half the respondents said they did not believe there were ties between the Inter-Services Intelligence agency and al Qaeda.
The poll further showed that 75 per cent of respondents disapproved of the US raid against bin Laden on Pakistani soil, less than 25 per cent believe bin Laden had authorised the 9/11 terror attacks in the US and 74 per cent believe the US government considers that it is at war with the Muslim world and did not respect Islam.
