Former president Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday said blaming him for the murder of Benazir Bhutto was totally wrong.
In an exclusively interview to a private TV channel, the former army chief said Benazir was listening to a phone call just before being killed and that phone was found two years later.
“A man named Khalid Shahansha was standing near her car and was behaving suspiciously. He was murdered in Karachi, and I heard that after Khalid’s murder, another man was murdered who had reportedly killed Khalid,” Musharraf said.
He said he proved everyone who said he would not return wrong. “I didn’t come back to Pakistan for my self, but for Pakistan and for the poor citizens of Pakistan. Had I thought about myself, I would have stayed away.”
Musharraf said the people did not trust the past government. “The real power is with the people, who have woken up and will bring change in the country.”
To a question, he said the drone attacks began in his government, but “we kept control over them and only nine attacks were carried out in my four years in the government.
“Now more than 500 drone attacks have been carried out in the tenure of the previous regime, it is not my fault, they should have controlled them as we did,” he said.
The former president said during his government, no one dared speak against Pakistan.
He said Karachi was the city of lights, and it was not his fault if it was now engulfed in problems.
“Why are they blaming me for all the bad things that have occurred, this is all due to the poor performance of the previous government.”
“During my government, dollar was at Rs 60 mark, now it is beyond Rs 100, I uplifted a defaulted state, now poverty is increasing by the day,” he said.
To a question, Musharraf said he had never wanted to hang Nawaz Sharif.
“I never wanted that. The court gave him punishment and later turned it into life imprisonment.”
Musharraf said Shah Abdulallh of Saudi Arabia later told him that Nawaz wanted to go Saudi Arabia and he agreed to let him go.
The former president said two forces were out to disintegrate Pakistan, one was the old mindset that exploited Islam and the other elements that did not wish to see Pakistan in one piece.
“If we do not prevail, the future of Pakistan will be in danger.”
To a question on Kargil, Musharraf said the Indian government was asking the US president to pressurise then PM Nawaz Sharif to withdraw forces from Kargil, because Indians had lost 1,700 men. “Thus the army’s victory turned into a political defeat,” he said. “I am happy on Kargil and army should be too.”
Musharraf said siding with the US after 9/11 attacks was the right decision according to his understanding.