Ravindra Begum, the wife of Syed Shahbaz Bhatt, one of the hijackers who operated from Karachi, had an alibi that she was working for some security agency. So, there was an international conspiracy to kill Bhutto because she had an affair. But what had her family been doing in Saudi Arabia? Had they been visiting their relatives there?”

He was asked about the media coverage of the case in the days and weeks before the assassination. He confirmed that no one made a report on the case as he did that for other sensitive topics like Jammu and Kashmir. He then went on to address the issue of an allegation floated by a newspaper based in the state of Punjab that Bhutto’s body was in a state of decomposition in Rawalpindi for almost five days.

“Our medical department gave a list of over 10 bodies to the Punjab police in those days. They examined them and did not find a single drop of Bhutto’s blood,” he stated.

“I believe the people who spoke in Punjab and who have made a big hue and cry, have been misquoting medical experts, as well as media personalities,” he said.

Talking about the recent debate over the Bhutto assassination, he said it was not a subject that was in the news in Pakistan except for three news reports in the period of October 10-10, and those were the two papers — Al-Akhbar and Geo News. The latter, in fact, wrote an editorial stating that there was no evidence linking Bhutto to the assassination, a position that was later challenged by the Punjab government.

“Our investigation was carried out before these three media reports in Pakistan, except one, which was published in the Pakistan Mirror on October 10, 2007, a little before Bhutto was declared Pakistan’s first female PM and that was an international issue, unlike here.”

“And that was the only reason why I was not concerned about the news. I was unaware of it, but I would like to ask the readers to remember that even if I did not want to discuss the subject, I would still have done so out of duty. We worked every day until the last hour to find the truth, as my personal duty and that of my party,” he concluded.

Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2011