December 27 In History: Muslim Women Leader First Benazir Bhutto Killed

Benazir Bhutto (Source Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - Benazir Bhutto is the first woman to lead a Muslim country, Pakistan. When he was about to run for president, Bhutto was killed by a suicide attack. How is his life journey?

Bhutto was born in Karachi, Southeast Pakistan on June 21, 1953. She is the eldest daughter of the founder of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. As the eldest daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, she has been close to politics since childhood.

After completing his early education in Pakistan, he continued his higher education in the United States. From 1969 to 1973, he attended Radcliffe College, and then Harvard University with a study in government.

After that he moved to England to study at Oxford from 1973 to 1977. There, he completed courses in International Law and Diplomacy.

As quoted by History, Bhutto returned to Pakistan in 1977, and was placed under house arrest after a military coup led by General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq overthrew his father's government. A year in charge, Zia convicted his father Bhutto on charges of allowing the murder of an opponent. After that, Bhutto then inherited his father's leadership in PPP.

Living in exile

He experienced many tragedies while leading the PPP in the 1980s. One such incident is the murder of Bhutto's brother Shahnawaz in his apartment on the Riviera in 1980. The family insists that Shahnawaz was poisoned, but no charges have been filed.

He then moved to England in 1984, becoming the exile leader of the PPP in London. Bhutto returned to Pakistan on April 10, 1986 for elections.

The following year he married a landlord, Asif Ali Zardari in Karachi. The couple has three children: Bilawal, Bakhtawar, and Aseefa.

The dictatorship of Zia ul-Haq ended when she was killed in a plane crash in 1988. And Bhutto was elected prime minister nearly three months after giving birth to her first child.

Bhutto became the first female prime minister in a Muslim country on December 1, 1988. But she was defeated in the 1990 elections due to several allegations of abuses during her tenure.

But he didn't give up. Bhutto won the next election in 1993, but was replaced in 1996. He is again in exile in England.

Bhutto was later convicted in 1999 of corruption and sentenced to three years in prison. He continued to lead his party from abroad, being reinstated as leader of the PPP in 2002.

The attacks were repeated

Bhutto returned to Pakistan on 18 October 2007, after President Musharraf granted amnesty on all corruption charges, paving the way for a return and a possible power-sharing agreement. After his return, however, protests erupted.

He was hit by a suicide bombing and killed 136 people. Bhutto survived after ducking in his armored car. He exclaimed that it was the darkest day in Pakistan.

Musharraf seems to have only used Bhutto's return to create a scapegoat. For that the president put Bhutto under house arrest on November 9.

However, Bhutto has gone too far, his plan to run in the 2008 elections must still be carried out. Unfortunately, on 27 December 13 years ago or in 2007, Bhutto was killed in an attack at a PPP rally in late 2007. After leaving the meeting in Rawalpindi, the BBC wrote, the gunman shot Bhutto in the neck and detonated a bomb. At least twenty other people were killed in the attack.

President Musharraf said he had asked a team of investigators from Britain's Scotland Yard to help investigate the murder of Bhutto.

It is strongly suspected that the killings were carried out by Muslim extremists. As disclosed by Pakistan's Ministry of Home Affairs, they have incontrovertible evidence that shows Al-Qaeda was behind Bhutto's murder.