Benazir: Yet another victim of political killings in S Asia

NEW DELHI: Benazir Bhutto on Thursday became the latest victim of political killings that have targeted national leaders in the Indian sub-continent in the last six decades.

The syndrome of political killings perhaps has taken perhaps its biggest toll in the land of Bhutto only where Pakistan's first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was assassinated just four years after the nation's independence.
      
Khan was scheduled to make an important announcement in a public meeting in Rawalpindi on October 16, 1951, when he was shot twice in the chest by a man sitting just 15 yards away from him.
      
Benazir's father and former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was hanged on April 4, 1979 soon after a coup by the then Army Chief Zia ul Haq despite a call for clemency by world leaders.
      
Tragedy followed Bhutto family and within a year, Bhutto's brother Shahnawaz was killed under suspicious circumstances in France.

The killing of another of her brothers Mir Murtaza in 1996 contributed to destabilising her second term as prime minister.
      
General Haq who became the President of Pakistan after the coup in 1979 died along with several of his top generals and the US Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Lewis Raphel in a mysterious aircraft crash on August 17, 1988.

Possibly the most shocking assasination of all killings particularly in India came right after Indian independence in 1947 when the 'Father of the Nation' Mahatama Gandhi was killed by a right-wing Hindu activist Nathuram Godse outside a temple.

Almost 37 years later, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was killed by one of her own bodyguards on October 31, 1984.

The killing was a result of the operation 'Blue Star' undertaken by the army to flush out militants who had holed up in the Golden Temple in Amristar.

The Gandhis saw yet another killing when Indira's son and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi too was assassinated in a suicide bomb attack on May 21, 1991.

Meanwhile neighboring country Sri Lanka, where LTTE is waging a war with government has also borne the brunt of political assassinations.

Sri Lanka's third president Ranasinghe Premadasa was assassinated in Colombo in a suicide bombing by the LTTE on May 1, 1993 during a political rally.
   
Since then a number of political leaders have been killed is various assassination and suicide attacks in Sri Lanka which also included a failed attempt by a female suicide bomber on the life of then President Chandrika Kumaratunga at an election meeting at the Town Hall in Colombo on December18, 1999.
      
The President however, escaped the assassination attempt with an eye injured due to sharpnels.
  
Nepal, witnessed one of the most gruesome killings in a political family. King, Birendra, Queen Aiswarya, Prince Nirajan and five others were shot dead by the crown prince, Dipendra on June 1, 2001 using an automatic weapon.
      
Bangladesh too has been a victim of political assassinations, the first been the killing of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding leader of Bangladesh. On August 15, 1975 a group of junior army officers invaded the presidential residence with tanks and killed Mujib, his family and the personal staff.
      
Only his daughters Sheikh Hasina Wajed and Sheikh Rehana, who were on a visit to West Germany escaped.
      
Within six years,Ziaur Rahman, the president of Bangladesh, was assassinated by a faction of officers of Bangladesh rmy, on May 30, 1981
      
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's daughter, Sheikh Hasina who is now Opposition and Awami Party leader was also targeted at a public rally in Dhaka in August 21, 2004.