BENAZIR BHUTTO

Benazir Bhutto was the 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan, serving two non-consecutive terms in 1988–90 and then 1993 to 1996. A scion of the politically powerful Bhutto family , she was the eldest daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto , a former prime minister himself who founded the center-left , Social-Democratic Pakistan People Party (PPP).

In 1982, three years after her father's assassination, 29-year-old Benazir Bhutto became the chairperson of the PPP—a political party, making her the first woman in Pakistan to head a major political party. In 1988, she became the first woman to be elected as the head of an Islamic state's government; she also remains Pakistan's only female prime minister. Noted for her charismatic authority and political astuteness, Bhutto drove initiatives for Pakistan's economy and national security, and she implemented social-capitalist policies for industrial development and growth. In 1993, Bhutto was elected for a second term after the 1993 parliamentary election.  In 1996, charges of corruption leveled against her led to the final dismissal of her government by President Farooq Leghari . Bhutto conceded her defeat in the 1997 Parliamentary election and went into exile in Dubai in 1999.

Nine years later, in 2007, she returned to Pakistan, having reached an understanding with President Pervez Musharraf , who granted her amnesty and withdrew all corruption charges against her. Bhutto was assassinated in a bombing on 27 December 2007, after leaving PPP's last rally in Rawalpindi, two weeks before the scheduled 2008 general election in which she was a leading opposition candidate. She was also a lecturer in Oxford University.

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto occurred on 27 December 2007 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan . Bhutto, twice Prime Minister of Pakistan (1988–1990; 1993–1996) and then-leader of the opposition Pakistan People Party, had been campaigning ahead of election scheduled for January 2008. Shots were fired at her after a political rally at Liaquat National Bagh , and a suicide bomb was detonated immediately following the shooting. She was declared dead at 18:16 local time (13:16 UTC), at Rawalpindi National Hospital. Twenty-four other people were killed by the bombing. Bhutto had previously survived a similar attempt on her life that killed at least 139 people, after her return from exile two months earlier.

Though early reports indicated that she had been hit by shrapnel or the gunshots, the Pakistani Interior Ministry initially stated that Bhutto died of a skull fracture sustained when the force of the explosion caused her head to strike the sunroof of the vehicle. Bhutto's aides rejected this version, and argued instead that she suffered two gunshots before the bomb detonation. The Interior Ministry subsequently backtracked from its previous claim.In May 2007, Bhutto asked for additional protection from foreign contracting agencies Black water and the British firm Armor Group The United Nations' investigation of the incident revealed that, "Ms. Bhutto's assassination could have been prevented if adequate security measures had been taken.

Prepared by Syed Mohamad Nurfurqhan b. Syed Mohamed Redzuan