ISLAMABAD: Just hours before she was killed, Benazir was trying to expose a suspected ISI operation to rig the January 8 elections.
Bhutto was informed by one of her close confidants on December 25 in an e-mail message sent on her personal e-mail address — sazdubai@emirates.net.ae —that the Musharraf regime has set up an election cell to engineer the 2008 elections.
She was informed that the cell headed by one Brigadier Riaz Chib is working in tandem with the Intelligence Bureau director General Brig (retd) Ejaz Shah and is actually tasked with changing the election results.
The information said the cell which has been established at a safe house of the ISI in Islamabad would ensure that stamped ballot papers in more than 100 constituencies of Punjab and Sindh are ready to be polled on the election day in favour of the pro-government Mulsim League faction.
In her reply from her black berry the same day – December 25 – Bhutto wrote: “I was told that the ISI and the MI have been asked not to meddle with the polls. But I will double check”.
In her second message to the same confidant at 1:12 pm on December 27 — a few hours before her assassination – Benazir wrote: “I need the address of the safe house in Islamabad as well as the phone numbers of the concerned. Pl try and obtain asap.”
The confidant wrote back at 3:06 the same day: “I have re-checked the information with the same source which earlier told us that the ISI and the MI have been asked not to meddle.
The source claims that the rigging cell/safe house in question is located on Shahra-e-Dastoor, close to the Pakistan House Bus Stop in Sector G-5 of Islamabad. It is a double story building, without carrying any address as is the case with most safe houses.
The cell consists of some retired intelligence officers who are not a part of the ISI and working independent of the ISI. The source says many other re-employed officers of the ISI are also a part of the special election cell headed by Riaz Chib which will show its magic on the election day.”
“Let me further inform you that Mush had granted Sitara-e-Imtiaz Military to Brig (Retd) Riaz Chib on December 17, 2007 for his meritorious services in operational field”.
Bhutto was killed before she could make public this information at a press conference.
