Pakistan: Investigators look for Bhutto headscarf

Wonder why only 1 policeman killed in blast that killed 20 Bhutto supporters.

It sure doesn't look like a super duper police cordon was in place, does it? Where were all the cops???

As their probe into the assassination of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairperson Benazir Bhutto enters into day three, the Scotland Yard investigators are looking for the headscarf that the slain leader was wearing at the time of being shot down outside Liaqat Bagh on December 27.

Sources privy to the development disclosed to TheNation on Sunday that five-member team of British investigators led by David Keith has expressed desire to examine all the circumstantial evidence available with local authorities in this high profile case including her last worn headscarf.

In addition to the headscarf, the British investigators are also intending to separately interview some of the local police officials including Senior Superintendent of Police (Operations) to verify the notes collected during the first two days of their the investigations.

The foreign investigators are also scheduled to interview a board of doctors on Tuesday that treated Benazir Bhutto at Rawalpindi General Hospital (RGH) before she was pronounced dead shortly after being attacked. Though the Scotland Yard investigators have met some of the doctors and seen the medical ward where BB was being treated in hospital, they are yet to meet all the members of the Board.

Officials of Rawalpindi police, who are accused of wiping down the crime scene within hours of the gory assassination, have already shared version of the event with Scotland Yard counter-terrorism and forensic experts.

After receiving detailed briefings from local police and examining the chart of its reported deployment around the targeted motorcade, the visiting investigators are now wondering why only one policeman was killed and only few sustained injuries when over twenty PPP activists fell prey to the brutal plot bedsides Benazir Bhutto. Local police is claiming it provided adequate security to the slain leader who, according to it, got shot because she exposed herself to attackers by standing out of her vehicle’s sunroof. Benazir’s security advisors are however blaming Rawalpindi police for providing the attackers an easy and close access to her with firearms and explosives.

The Scotland Yard investigators have also reexamined the targeted vehicle in the light of the police account to understand the possible direction of bullets and shrapnel. They have already met few of the injured including the security guards of Benazir Bhutto.

Criminology experts say the circumscribed team of Scotland Yard is though significant in its efforts to probe Bhutto’s assassination, yet its chances of success were grim in the absence of autopsy report, washed down crime scene and no access to the suspects nominated by Benazir herself only few weeks before being eliminated.


While the Interior Ministry is putting a call out to individuals to come forward with any amateur video, photos they may have of the incident.