Over 14 people were injured on Saturday when angry members of the Pakistan People's party clashed with the police, blocked roads and forced closure of shops to protest against Thursday night's attack on the convoy of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto that killed 165 people. Groups of PPP supporters, some of them waving the party's flag, pelted stones, burnt tyres and caused traffic snarls at Safoora Goth, University Road, Sachal Goth, Lyari, Mauripur Road, Gadap areas.
Almost all security measures agreed to by the government and the Pakistan People's Party for the homecoming of former premier Benazir Bhutto were compromised due to the massive turnout of her supporters.
Through the night, private vehicles and ambulances ferried the wounded and dead to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Aga Khan University Hospital and others where utter chaos prevailed as doctors struggled to attend to the hundreds of victims.
Bhutto, who was making a grand homecoming after eight years in self-exile, was rushed from the site of the blasts to her home, Bilawal House, soon after the explosions past Thursday midnight, Pakistan People's Party spokesman Farhatullah Babar said.
Musharraf and Aziz had both asked the Pakistan People's Party chief to defer her homecoming and the government had said she faced a threat from pro-Taliban militants, especially rebel leader Baitullah Mehsud.
Intelligence reports suggest that underworld don Dawood Ibrahim is in Pakistan, that country's former prime minister Benazir Bhutto has said. She said if a Pakistan Peoples' Party government came to power it will honour its commitment to India and extradite Dawood Ibrahim, who is allegedly the mastermind behind the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts.
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is determined to return to Pakistan from self-exile on October 18, the Pakistan People's Party said in Islamabad on Monday. The government had asked Bhutto to postpone her homecoming till the Supreme Court decides on petitions against President Pervez Musharraf's re-election and a law giving Bhutto amnesty in graft cases. PPP spokesperson Sherry Rehman there was no confusion about the two-time prime minister's return programme.
Bhutto said she was expecting the National Reconciliation Ordinance -- which would grant amnesty to political leaders in corruption cases -- to come out on Thursday.
A day after Pakistan agreed to grant former prime minister Benazir Bhutto an amnesty from prosecution in corruption cases against her, Interpol has put the govt in a fix by enquiring about her status. Interpol had issued red corner notice on Bhutto.
Former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday hinted that his Pakistan Muslim League- N party may not be averse to an alliance with Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party in the forthcoming general elections. Sharif said that the PML-N and the PPP can explore the possibility of a coalition government after the elections. the PML-N had decided to boycott elections to express solidarity with the PPP following Bhutto's assassination. But it reversed the decision later.
Former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto, for the second successive day at a Washington, DC, news conference said that if she returns to power she would make available Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan to the IAEA.
Benazir Bhutto was laid to rest next to her father's grave in this ancestral village on Friday, a day after she was assassinated in Rawalpindi. Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari, son Bilawal and two daughters -- Bhaktawar and Asia -- were present when her body was lowered in a grave at the family's white-domed mausoleum after funeral prayers. The body was earlier placed in a plain wooden coffin draped in the black, green and red flag of her Pakistan People's Party.
Reports said five bullets were fired at Bhutto, one of which pierced her neck. The 54-year-old leader of the Pakistan People's Party was rushed to the Rawalpindi general hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Pakistan People's Party chief Benazir Bhutto's return will bring political stability to the country, according to Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri.
Sharif, who had on Monday joined hands with his political rival and Pakistan People's Party leader Benazir Bhutto to set conditions for free and fair polls, addressed supporters of his PML-N party at several places in the North West Frontier Province on Tuesday.
Bhutto had earlier said that her party would contest the polls 'under protest', while Sharif has backed the All Parties Democratic Movement's decision to boycott the polls.
President Pervez Musharraf has admitted that he's negotiating with all political outfits in Pakistan, including the parties of former premiers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.
Our top leaders want to see Sharif as the Prime Minister in case our party does badly in the upcoming general elections," the Dawn quoted the ruling party sources as saying in Islamabad.
Bhutto says she can recognise the man who was carrying the infant and has asked television channels channels to provide her with footage of the rally.
Upping the ante, former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto Tuesday asked Pervez Musharraf to quit as President saying the days of dictatorship in Pakistan were over. "We say Musharraf must leave. The time for dictatorship is over. It's time to bring a transfer to democracy," Bhutto told Britain's Sky News in a telephonic interview from Lahore, where police have placed her under house arrest to stop her from leading an anti-emergency rally to Islamabad.
"I say this because he is a man of courage and honour. He spent 11 years in prison without bending despite torture. He has the political stature to keep our party united," she said in the hand-written letter described by the PPP as Bhutto's political will, which was released to the media in Islamabad on Tuesday.
She left Karachi airport for home after being made to sit in the plane for several hours after flying in from Dubai. On her arrival in Karachi, she was not allowed to de-board. Some supporters of her Pakistan People Party gathered at the airport to greet her.
The former premier left for Dubai a day after telling reporters that she was postponing the visit as she feared that the Pakistan government would impose emergency during her absence.
Addressing a public rally in Kohat, Durrani said that contrary to her claims for the last seven years that she won't back Musharraf, Bhutto was now convinced that Musharraf's development agenda had nationwide support.
Former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto has received a death threat from female suicide bombers, one of her close aides said on Tuesday.
Bhutto, the Pakistan Peoples Party chief, said her party's talks with the military regime had focused on a level-playing field for all political parties for holding of fair elections for transition to democracy for an empowered Parliament.
Born on June 21, 1953, into a wealthy landowning family in southern Pakistan, the mother of three children inherited the heavy political legacy of her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who was hanged by Gen Zia in 1979.
The Pakistan government has said that former prime minister Benazir Bhutto will convey her final plan of return to the country on Tuesday. The government has been asking the Pakistan People's Party chief, who is living in a self-imposed exile, to delay her return scheduled for October 18. A minister clarified that the government has no intention to block her on return as a better understanding already existed between the PPP and the government.
Aides of President Pervez Musharraf and Pakistan People's Party leader Benazir Bhutto will be holding a final round of talks in the United Arab Emirates from Tuesday to "devise a strategy for the coming general election," a media report said. The talks were earlier scheduled after Eid-ul-Fitr, but after Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and PML-N president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain ruled out any truck with the PPP for the polls, the meetings were urgently arranged.
On his joining politics, he had said, "We will see, I don't know. I would like to help the people of Pakistan, so I will decide when I finish my studies." "I can either enter politics, or I can enter another career that would benefit the people," Bilawal said when he was 15.
Television footage showed torn limbs and parts of flesh were spread around the Liaqat Bagh park, the venue of the rally by the former prime minister and the leader of the Pakistan People's Party.
Notwithstanding India's objection, Pakistan on Monday held legislative assembly elections in the strategic Gilgit-Baltistan region amid tight security.
The Pakistan Peoples Party chief, who is in self-imposed exile, kept her hopes alive on reaching an agreement with Musharraf despite breakdown in talks, saying the "window is not totally shut."
Former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto on Saturday said she had not yet reached a power sharing deal with President Pervez Musharraf, but vowed to return to Pakistan from her self-imposed exile "very soon."
Hitting out at Pakistan People's Party chief Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has accused the former Premier of wanting to avoid the general election due in January, saying that 'the darling of the West' was unlikely to win.
A leader said Bhutto and her husband's frozen wealth, including both inland and offshore bank accounts as well as assets, is worth $1.5 billion.
The Dawn news channel quoted an Interior Ministry spokesman as saying that a suicide bomber had struck the meeting of the Islamabad District Bar Association.
Bhutto said militancy has grown so strong in Pakistan that it posed a challenge to the unity of the country.
Bhutto plans to travel by Emirates Airlines with a two-hour stop-over in Dubai before landing in Karachi on October 18
Pakistan government on Friday handed over the security of capital Islamabad to the army for three months under a controversial decision taken recently, days ahead of a major anti-government rally by Imran Khan's party.
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