“The important thing to know about an assassination or an attempted assassination is not who fired the shot, but who paid for the bullet.”–English author Eric Ambler.
Revolutionary ideas-driven political leaders around the developing world have an unenviable history with their lifeline, and they are victimised, more often than not, brutally enough to the extent of their life.
While this says volumes about moral failure, it simultaneously delivers a fair reflection about the political intolerance of the certain strata for whom personal interests surpass every moral value. Being a part of the developing world already undone by economic woes, this stigma adds to the havoc.
Pakistan tops the awful list of leaders’ assassination attempts as well. Like most of our national troubles, it also takes roots from the very inception. Political leaders of Pakistan and their assassination attempts are inexorably intertwined. Attempts on numerous politicians had been made to take their lives, sometimes due to the opposition intolerance and prejudice, while on other instances due to the state commands. To start with, Pakistan’s first Prime Minister, Liaqat Ali Khan, had been a victim of political violence. He was shot dead on 16 October 1951, in the Company Bagh, Rawalpindi on the stage, albeit the place was renamed ‘Liaqat Bagh’, which only exacerbated the misery of the loss. According to the media, the killer was shot dead at the very moment. Hence, no further full-blown investigations were made about the assassin except the information about his Afghan origin.
The only Muslim woman to have been Prime Minister twice, Benazir Bhutto Shaheed, was also assassinated in the same city on 27 December 2007, despite being escorted by a superlatively loaded security due to death threats at the same place.
Later, the widower, Asif Ali Zardari, didn’t allow the post mortem of her body, which is to ascertain the guilty. Hence, the shooters were never caught. It probably seems that ‘Rawalpindi’ doesn’t like the populist leaders, or it can be a mere coincidence.
The retrospective study of our history stands evident to the countless avoidable horrors that our ‘elites’ embraced deliberately for personal dividends. Surrounded by the dreadful casualties, heinous desires of inhumane activities, and assassination attempts like these, courtesy; vested interests, the massive growing youth stands in dismay about Pakistan as a nation.
But no matter how much one disagrees with the strategic stances of Benazir Bhutto, her popularity among the masses was unquestionable. Yet, her murder gave another demonstration of how Pakistan’s soil, due to certain ‘evil-elite’ tendencies, is never an embracing place for such masses-approved leaders.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, another stalwart, revolutionary-minded political leader of Pakistan, was hanged by the military regime of Zia-ul-Haq, which a portion of the population still labels an unjust verdict for such a great leader, inching it closer to be called as an assassination by the state. Later, his elder son, Mir Murtaza Bhutto, was also murdered in 1996 in Karachi. This list can proceed on and has no terminus.
Lately, PTI chairman and ex-PM Imran Khan had been receiving death threats. After his ouster by the National Assembly from the PM’s office, he has apparently gained a much lively support, which was proven by the recent by-elections in which he contested for seven out of eight National Assembly seats and won six, denoting a fair share of support after his expulsion. On November 3, during his Long March towards Rawalpindi, at Wazirabad a shooter attempted to take his life, but proceeded in vain by not accomplishing the ‘given mission’ of his murder. Albeit it injured Senator Daisal Javed, PTI senior member, and a few PTI workers, no serious damage has been reported yet far, apart from one person who was killed.
This event is an alarming call for us as a nation, not because it was an attempt of murder of Imran Khan, but because after a fair patch of low terrorism, we are again submerging into the labyrinths of terror in the society. Assisted by the infiltration of Taliban into Khyber Pakthunkhwa, the attempted murder of the populist leader added insult to injury.
The inquiries are yet to proceed, but the history reflects the fact that in this state, personal interest overcomes any other virtue of morality. Below-the-belt crimes followed by a failed inquiry, partially due to the police inept and massively due to the judicial failure, has become a norm.
The retrospective study of our history stands evident to the countless avoidable horrors that our ‘elites’ embraced deliberately for personal dividends. Surrounded by the dreadful casualties, heinous desires of inhumane activities, and assassination attempts like these, courtesy; vested interests, the massive growing youth stands in dismay about Pakistan as a nation.
