Benazir Bhutto remembered

Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was paid glowing tribute on her 59th birth anniversary to commemorate her fight for the rights of the people and democracy. Special prayers were held at her grave in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, where PPP leaders and workers laid wreaths and donated blood to mark the day. Benazir was born on June 21, 1953, in Karachi, to former PM Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. She inherited the PPP leadership after a military coup overthrew her father’s government. She won the election in 1988, becoming the first female prime minister of a Muslim nation. After completing her early education in Pakistan, she pursued higher education in the United States. From 1969 to 1973, she attended Radcliff College and then Harvard University, where she graduated with a bachelors degree in comparative government. She then went to the United Kingdom to study at Oxford from 1973 to 1977. There, she completed a course in International Law and Diplomacy. She moved to England in 1984, becoming the joint leader in exile of the PPP. She returned to Pakistan on April 10, 1986, to launch a nationwide campaign for ‘open elections’. She married a wealthy landowner, Asif Ali Zardari, in Karachi on December 18, 1987. The couple had three children, Bilawal, Bakhtawar and Aseefa. Bhutto returned to Pakistan on October 18, 2007, but was killed when an assassin fired shots and then blew himself up after an election campaign rally in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007. The special prayers at the mausoleum of the Bhutto family in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh Bhutto were attended among others by PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Yousaf Raza Gilani and Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali. In Lahore, the Pakistan People’s Party Minorities Wing held special prayers for the late party chief. Minorities leader Napolean Qayyum said the minorities of the country had special regard for the martyred PPP leader as she had always strived to ensure the protection of rights of the marginalized communities of Pakistan. “On her birthday, minorities belonging to all faiths pray for the departed soul of Shaheed Benazir and pray that the country comes out of the present crises. Pakistan is our motherland and we are ready to give our blood for it as has our dear leader,” he said.