ISLAMABAD: The banned outfit, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has claimed responsibility for the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in a newly-released book, reported Daily Times.
No group had claimed responsibility for Benazir’s murder until the claim in the Taliban’s Urdu-language book ‘Inqilab Mehsood South Waziristan — From British Raj to American Imperialism’.
Taliban leader Abu Mansoor Asim Mufti Noor Wali has written the book and published it on November 30, 2017, at ‘Maseed Computer Centre in Barmal, in Afghanistan’s Paktika province, according to the details on the book. The 588-page book, which contains many photographs on the Taliban leaders, was posted online.
On December 27, 2007, Benazir Bhutto was killed in a suicide attack in Rawalpindi shortly after she addressed an election rally.
The then president Pervez Musharraf had blamed the TTP for the attack, however, Taliban had denied Musharraf’s claim. Officials in Musharraf government had also released an audio conversation between the two Taliban men who were talking about Benazir’s death.
The anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Rawalpindi had acquitted five Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) suspects and announced 17-year imprisonment for two police officials, while announcing the verdict of the Benazir Bhutto murder case.
The ATC had also declared Pervez Musharraf an absconder in the case. Musharraf on a number of occasions denied any involvement and dismissed charges as politically-motivated.
PPP Co-chairman Bilawal Bhutto had again blamed Musharraf in his speech to his supporters on the 10th death anniversary of his mother on December 27, last year.
It has been revealed in the book that Baitullah had also approved an attack on Benazir Bhutto’s procession in Karachi in October 2007, when she returned to Pakistan to lead party campaign for the 2008 parliamentary elections.
Benazir survived the bombing that occurred two months before she was assassinated in Rawalpindi.
