A bloody history: How Pakistani politicians are unsafe in their own country

The attack on former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan has once again put the spotlight on the country’s violent political history. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Khan was injured today (3 November) after unidentified assailants opened fire on his container near the Allah Ho Chowk at Wazirabad in the eastern Punjab province of Pakistan.

A PTI leader said Imran was shot in the foot and not seriously wounded. “A man opened fire with an automatic weapon. Several people are wounded. Imran Khan is also injured,” Asad Umar told Reuters.

PTI leaders Faisal Javed and Ahmad Chattha were also among those injured in the gunfire on Imran Khan’s convoy, as per Pakistan daily Dawn.

This comes as Khan is leading a long march toward Islamabad to pressurise the Pakistan government to hold early elections.

عزم صمیم، یقین محکم، بہادری اور جواں مردی کی جاگتی تصویر، ہمارا قائد عمران خان

#عمران_خان_ہماری_ریڈ_لاین_ہے pic.twitter.com/C0F2mkBIO3

— Senator Dr. Shahzad Waseem (@dswpti) November 3, 2022

Condemning the attack, Pakistan premier Shehbaz Sharif said “violence should have no place in our country’s politics.”

“I have directed [the] interior minister for an immediate report on the incident. I pray for the recovery and health of [the] PTI chairman and other injured people,” he tweeted.

Federal government will extend all support necessary to Punjab govt for security & investigation. Violence should have no place in our country’s politics. 2/2 https://t.co/LWMUW03kQb

— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) November 3, 2022

Amid the attack on Khan, the tumultuous history of political violence in Pakistan has come to the forefront again.

Which other political leaders have been a victim of violence in Pakistan? Let’s take a look.

Liaquat Ali Khan

Pakistan’s first prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan was shot dead in Rawalpindi’s Company Bagh on 16 October 1951 during a public meeting of the Muslim City League.

Liaquat Ali Khan was a close aide of the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

After Khan’s murder, the Company Bagh was renamed Liaquat Garden, reports Dawn.

His attacker Said Akbar was shot dead by police at the same spot and hence several questions regarding the assassination remain unanswered even today.

ALSO READ: Imran Khan assassination bid: Everything we know about the attack and the assailants

General Zia-ul-Haq

In August 1988, the then president and army chief of Pakistan, General Zia-ul-Haq died after a C-130 carrying him exploded soon after take-off from Bahawalpur airbase.

“The plane had crashed at an almost perpendicular angle. I first spotted the cap worn by Gen Wassom, and then General Akhtar Rahman’s peaked cap. Then my eye fell upon a dismembered leg, wearing a black sock and black shoe. I suspected it belonged to Gen Zia,” Brigadier (now retired) Naseem Khan was quoted as saying by Dawn.

The plane crash remains shrouded in mystery.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the father of Benazir Bhutto and a former Pakistan prime minister, was overthrown by General Zia in July 1977. On 4 April 1979, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged and the sentence is still considered a “judicial murder”, as per the Pakistani daily newspaper The News.

Benazir Bhutto

The killing of Benazir Bhutto continues to haunt Pakistan.

Former Pakistan prime minister Bhutto was assassinated just three months after she ended her self-imposed exile in 2007.

Bhutto, a leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), was murdered on 27 December 2007 by a 15-year-old suicide bomber named Bilal during a political rally in Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh.

This had come a few weeks after a failed assassination attempt on her had claimed over 130 lives.

Bilal shot Bhutto and then blew himself up. He had reportedly carried out the attack on the instructions of the Pakistani Taliban, as per BBC. 

In a few weeks following the killing, five suspects had confessed to providing aid to Bilal for assassinating Bhutto at the directions of the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda, BBC reports.

Pervez Musharraf, who was the general in charge of Pakistan at the time of her murder, when asked if some ‘rogue elements in the establishment’ could have been in touch with the Taliban regarding Bhutto’s killing, had said in 2017: “Possibility. Yes indeed. Because the society is polarised on religious lines”, reports BBC. 

Musharraf himself was accused of criminal conspiracy for murder and facilitation of murder in the Benazir Bhutto case.

Her murder case is still pending at a Pakistan court.

Murtaza Bhutto and Shah Nawaz

Benazir Bhutto’s elder brother Mir Murtaza Bhutto, who had organised a terrorist outfit– al-Zulfiqar– was shot dead on 20 September 1996 near Karachi’s 70 Clifton– his father’s residence– by an unknown assassin.

Murtaza’s widow and children have pointed fingers at Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari over the murder, as per Indian Express.

In 1985, Shahnawaz Bhutto, Benazir’s other brother, was poisoned under mysterious circumstances in France, reports The Guardian.

According to The Guardian, following Benazir Bhutto’s murder, The News had said, “The fact that almost all the past political assassinations and unusual deaths in Pakistan’s history – including those of Liaquat Ali Khan, Hayat Ahmed Sherpao, General Zia, Murtaza Bhutto and Omar Asghar Khan – remain shrouded in mystery provides little assurance that questions surrounding this killing will be satisfactorily answered.”

Omar Asghar Khan

Former federal minister Omar Asghar Khan was found hanging from a ceiling fan at the residence of his in-laws in 2002 under ‘mysterious circumstances’.

“Police claimed that Omar Asghar had committed suicide but initial report of the postmortem examination and the circumstantial evidence suggested otherwise,” Dawn had reported then.

Salman Taseer

On 4 January 2011, the then Punjab governor Salman Taseer was killed by one of his own bodyguards in Islamabad. Taseer, who was a senior member of the Pakistan People’s Party, was fired upon when he was getting into his car at a market, as per BBC.

Taseer had called for the pardon of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman, who had been awarded capital punishment for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

According to BBC, the then interior minister Rehman Malik said that the bodyguard had told police that he killed Taseer because of the politician’s opposition to Pakistan’s blasphemy law.

The guard, Mumtaz Qadri, was hanged in 2016 for killing Taseer.

Shahbaz Bhatti

In March 2011, Shahbaz Bhatti, who was Pakistan’s minorities minister at the time, was shot dead by ‘self-described Taliban gunmen’.

As per The Guardian, the assailants rained gunfire on the Christian minister’s car and struck him at least eight times. They also scattered pamphlets, signed as ‘Taliban al-Qaida Punjab’, that described him as a “Christian infidel”.

Yusuf Raza Gilani, who served as Pakistan’s prime minister from 2008–12, had survived an assassination attempt in 2008 when shots were fired at his car in Islamabad, however, he was not inside.

Pervez Musharraf

Former president Pervez Musharraf has survived multiple assassination attempts.

On 14 December 2003, a powerful bomb blast occurred minutes after Musharraf’s highly-guarded convoy crossed a bridge in Rawalpindi. However, the attempt on his life was unsuccessful.

On 25 December of the same year, another bid was made to eliminate Musharraf but he survived again.

On 6 July 2007, Musharraf again evaded an attempt on his life when around 36 rounds were fired at his aircraft from a submachine gun at Rawalpindi, reports The News.

Attacks on other leaders

NWFP politician Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan, popularly called Dr Khan Sahib, was killed on 9 May 1958 at his son’s Lahore residence by a disgruntled Mianwali-based land revenue clerk.

Mir Nooruddin Mengal, a senior leader of the Balochistan National Party (BNP-M), was shot dead by unidentified men near his residence in Kalat in October 2010.

He succumbed to his injuries while on his way to Quetta. A doctor had said that he was shot in the head and chest, as per The Express Tribune.

With inputs from agencies

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