Mir Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto (September 18, 1954 - September 20, 1996) (Sindhi: مير مرتضی ڀٽو, Urdu: مير مرتضی بھٹو) was a member of Pakistan's powerful Bhutto family, elder son of former Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the brother of former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto. He was killed in a police encounter in 1996.
Biography
Born in Karachi on September 18, 1954, Mir Murtaza received his early education at St. Mary's School, Rawalpindi. He later passed his ‘O’ levels from the Karachi Grammar School in 1971.
In 1972, Murtaza went off to Harvard University where he studied Government, specialising in strategic studies. For a period of time he was the roommate of Texas Gubernatorial candidate and former mayor of Houston, Bill White. He graduated with honours in 1976, and his thesis was entitled "Modicum of Harmony" which dealt with the spread of nuclear weapons in general, and the implications of India's nuclear capability for Pakistan in particular.
Murtaza went on to Christ Church College Oxford, his father's alma mater, for a three-year course to read for an M.Lit. degree. But the death penalty awarded to his father in 1978 seriously disrupted his studies. Murtaza was on the verge of rushing home when he received a message from his father asking him to remain abroad where he could mobilise an international campaign for his release.
Murtaza had been present in Pakistan when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's government was overthrown on July 5, 1977. Along with other family members, Murtaza had returned to Al-Murtaza, Larkana, and at the time was busy helping in the preparations for the elections schedule for October 1977. But on September 16, 1977 when Bhutto was arrested from Al-Murtaza, he ordered his son to leave the country.
After Bhutto was sentenced, Murtaza joined hands with his brother the late Shahnawaz Bhutto, to initiate a campaign to muster international support to revoke the death penalty looming over his father's head. Leaders from Syria, Libya, and the PLO were particularly supportive. Mercy appeals were sent by several heads of state to General Ziaul Haq which failed, however, to sway his decision.
Murtaza and Shahnawaz both cut short their respective educations and decided to devote themselves to avenge their father's death. Eventually they resorted to taking up arms, their main target being General Ziaul Haq. This marked the beginning of a new and more controversial era in Murtaza's life.
Murtaza Bhutto was a novice to active politics until 1978 when his father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was sentenced to death by the Lahore High Court. In the span of 15 years, however, Murtaza has managed to gain considerable notoriety for a brand of politics that has moved in diametrically opposing direction to his sister Benazir Bhutto's.
Al-Zulfikar Organization
Al-Zulfiqar was a leftist insurgency and militant organization of Pakistan. It was formed in the late seventies by the sons of former Pakistani Prime Minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was also the Chairman of Pakistan's biggest political party, PPP. Al-Zulfiqar was formed to avenge the killing of Bhutto by the right-wing military regime of General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq in 1976. Zia had deposed the populist Bhutto regime in a Military coup in July 1976.
Bhutto was hanged by the Zia regime after a one-sided and controversial trial, Bhutto's two sons, Murtaza Bhutto and Shahnawaz Bhutto went into exile in Afghanistan which was then being ruled by a Soviet-backed communist government. There the two sons formed the Al-Zulfiqar along with hundreds of Pakistan Peoples Party militants who had escaped Zia's persecution.
The Al-Zulfikar Organization (AZO) was born at this point, and disgruntled elements among the younger members of the PPP, disappointed in the party's leadership, flocked to Murtaza's side. The AZO, however, went on to earn the terrorist charge, a label which has dogged Murtaza ever since.
For his part, he has always denied the charge that he espouses the politics of terrorism. "Why is the AZO called a terrorist organisation? Why are we blamed for treason or sedition? What General Zia did to the constitution and to the elected prime minister of the country was real treason. What we did was something that every patriotic Pakistan should do in order to safeguard the interest of the country," Murtaza maintains.
Al-Zulfikar's Activities
Al-Zulfiqar began covert-ops against Zia’s Pakistan in earnest, with KHAD/KGB support. The Kremlin, of course, also wanted to punish General Zia for allowing America, China and Saudi Arabia to finance the Afghan mujahideen revolt against its Marxist Kabul vassal regime, Khaleej Times writes.
Murtaza’s men bombed the Sindh High Court, assassinated Zia cronies in the Punjab who had signed his father’s death warrant, used the terrorist Tipu to hijack a PIA airliner at Karachi to divert it to Kabul. Murtaza welcomed Tipu on the tarmac at Kabul airport with the KGB resident watching and listening to everything in the control tower. Women and children were released from the hijacked PIA plane and a triumphant Tipu spoke to Babrak Kamal, the President of Afghanistan installed by the USSR after the invasion. An aide to Prime Minister Bhutto who the paranoid Tipu thought was an Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) agent, Captain Tariq Rahim, was machine gunned, thrown to the tarmac to bleed to death. The KGB had armed Tipu and his men with grenades, explosives, timers, machine guns, money. Outraged by the killing, Andropov ordered Afghan intelligence chief, a de facto KGB general Najibullah to order the flight to Damascus, where President Assad negotiated the end of the hijack. Al-Zulfikar’s stock soared in Kabul and the Kremlin, Khaleej Times concludes. Murtaza was a hero to the Sindh and Baluchistan secessionists. It was a message from Andropov to Zia, KGB to ISI.
Two assassination attempts organized by Mir Murtaza against Zia’s Falcon private jet went wrong. Al-Zulfikar’s shooters bungled the SAM-7 missile’s viewfinder and aircraft heat sensor.
1981 PIA hijacked
Al-Zulfiqar hijacked a Pakistan International Airlines flight from Peshawar to Kabul in March 1981.
The hijacking went on for thirteen days in which Lieutenant Tariq Rahim was shot dead, the hijackers mistakenly believing he was the son of General Rahimuddin Khan, executing him following Murtaza's conferring with KHAD chief Mohammad Najibullah. This forced the Zia regime to accept the demands of the hijackers of releasing dozens of Pakistan Peoples Party and other leftist political prisoners languishing in Pakistani jails.
Sindh Assembly
Murtaza Bhutto and Asif Zardari
After returning to Pakistan from exile, Bhutto offered his sister Benazir Bhutto the chance to revive the manifesto of PPP which his father championed. However, he was not happy with the corrupt ways of Benazir's husband Asif Ali Zardari and wanted him removed from influence in the PPP. When his sister decided to side with her husband, Murtaza became a strong critic of PPP government and the ongoing corruption. Zardari, and his protege Abdullah Shah Lakiyari (then Chief Minister of Sind), obstructed Murtaza's political compaign. Murtaza invited Asif Ali Zardari to talk in private and settle the problems within the family. However, the meeting ended in confrontation and Murtaza shaved off half of Zardari’s moustache. This humiliated Zardari. It is widely believed in Pakistan that this incident drove Zardari to rage and he used help from Lakiyari's police machinery to assassinate Murtaza Bhutto. Benazir became highly unpopular after this incident and her limo was stoned by PPP workers when she tried to visit Murtaza's funeral ceremonies. After Benazir's government was dismissed in 1996, Zardari was detained for having a part in Murtaza's assassination. However, no charges were ever proven due to lack of evidence (the scene of Murtaza's assassination was wiped off before any Police investigators could arrive at the scene.
Assassination
Evening Thursday 20 September 1996 at 6:35 p.m., the estranged brother of Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and the only surviving son of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Mir Murtaza Bhutto was shot dead along with six other party activists in a police encounter near his residence.
Among the dead was Aashiq Jatoi, the acting provincial chief of the Pakistan Peoples Party (Shaheed Bhutto Group). He was a brother in-law of Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan. The injured list included six Party activists of Murtaza Bhutto's party and three policemen, including additional Superintendent of Police of Saddar area of Karachi and two other station house officers.
Just before his death Mir Murtaza Bhutto, 42, had attacked the government, warning it not to arrest him without warrant. "There would be trouble if the Police tries to arrest me without a warrant," he had declared.
Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto rushed to the city when told about the encouner. Begum Nusrat, mother of Murtaza, was in London.
The versions of the encounter given by the injured party activists and the police differed considerably.
Murtaza's supporters cling to the chopper carrying his body
The pilot of one of the helicopters which carried the body of deceased Murtaza Bhutto felt difficulty in lifting the chopper as a number of supporters of Murtaza from Lyari, Karachi clung to the base rod in a bid to board the machine. While the helicopter managed to lift off, many of the visibly moved supporters of Murtaza fell down but one of them remained clung to the helicopter. The helicopter flew up to sea side and then returned and landed at Bagh Ibn-e-Qasim where the youth clinging to helicopter's rod fell down and the chopper flew away. The youth broke both his legs and was crippled for life.
