Murtaza Bhutto
Mir Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto (18 September 1954 – 20 September 1996), was a Pakistani politician and leader of al-Zulfiqar, a terrorist organization operating in Pakistan. The son of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Murtaza founded al-Zulfiqar after his father was overthrown and executed in 1979 by the military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq. In 1981, he claimed responsibility for the hijacking of a Pakistan International Airlines airplane from Karachi, during which a hostage was killed. In exile in Afghanistan, Murtaza was sentenced to death in absentia by a military tribunal.
He returned to Pakistan in 1993 and was arrested for terrorism on the orders of his sister, then-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Released on bail, Murtaza successfully contested elections to the Sindh Provincial Assembly, becoming a vocal critic of Benazir and her husband Asif Ali Zardari. After increasing tensions between the two, he was shot dead along with six associates in a police encounter near his home in Karachi on 20 September 1996. Benazir's government was dismissed a month later by President Farooq Leghari primarily citing Murtaza's death and corruption. Zardari was arrested and indicted for Murtaza's murder, but acquitted in 2008. Murtaza's own faction of his father's Pakistan People's Party, Shaheed Bhutto, remains active in politics.
Read more about Murtaza Bhutto: Biography, Al-Zulfiqar, 1981 PIA Hijacked, Murtaza Bhutto and Asif Zardari, Death, Aftermath, Police Trial
Famous quotes containing the word bhutto:
“The people who resent me do so because I’m a woman, I’m young, and I’m a Bhutto. Well, the simple answer is, it doesn’t matter that I’m a woman, it doesn’t matter that I’m young, and it’s a matter of pride that I’m a Bhutto.”
—Benazir Bhutto (b. 1953)