On 27 December 2007, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto, who shared a bond of undying love with the people of Pakistan, laid down her life in the way of her continuous struggle for her country and her people. A natural and extremely charismatic leader, she loved her people with all her heart and the nation too equally loved her. The fact that she was martyred atop her vehicle on her return from a public meeting in Liaqat Bagh Rawalpindi, while waving and responding to the public is a testimony for her love for the nation until her last breath.
Her undying love for her people defined and drove Shaheed Benazir Bhutto throughout her 54 years of life. After the martyrdom of her father, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto could have easily chosen a life of comfort and luxuries. Instead she chose to stand with the people in the toughest of times and during the darkest dictatorial rules. Nothing dissuaded her, nothing disheartened her, and no power on earth could diminish her love for her people. All she wanted for the people was to be free, educated, healthy and leading peaceful lives, yet those simple demands on behalf of the people which are also the birthright of every human being, were unacceptable for dictators and their remnants and she was made to pay a price of her love for the people. Benazir Bhutto is probably the only leader of the world to have suffered every imaginable hardship in her struggle: the untimely loss of her father, the disintegration of a family, the tragic deaths of her brothers, jails and exiles, the extreme loneliness of having her life partner imprisoned for over a decade, and the fact that she was a woman waging her battles in a man's world.
However, it wasn't only Benazir Bhutto love for the people that worried the proponents and remnants of darkness. It was as much the love of the people for the daughter of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. The fact that people would turn out in historic numbers on her every call, braving all hurdles and hardships for her, and even sacrificing their lives for her cause was what worried her opponents the most. In her later struggle against extremism and terrorism, her strong and undying relationship with the people is what became the greatest and most potent threat to terrorists and its supporters.
With her martyrdom, terrorists and their supporters had hoped the people's love for their great leader would die out too. On the contrary, her death only made the people's relationship with the Bhutto's stronger and eternal, and galvanized the nation into a full onslaught against terrorism. The national successes and victories against terrorism are directly attributable to her ultimate sacrifice.
Today, Benazir Bhutto and her mission lives on, in the form of her life partner Asif Ali Zardari, her son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, and her daughters Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari and Asifa Bhutto Zardari.
The writer is Minister Information, Government of Sindh
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