Shaheed Benazir Bhutto was born on 21 June 1953 in the house of Quaid-e-Awam Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. She attained her early education at the Convent School, Rawalpindi and later at Convent School at Murree. Following her initial education in Pakistan, she went to the USA for higher education where she studied at the Radcliff College and the Harvard University. She then studied for a second undergraduate degree, in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. After LMH she attended St Catherine's College, Oxford. In 1976, she was elected President of the Oxford Union, the first Asian woman to hold that post. She was also president of the Oxford Majlis Asian Society.
In 1976 she graduated from Oxford University, intent on joining the Pakistani Foreign Service. She remained at Oxford for a further year to attain a postgraduate degree and returned to Pakistan in June 1977. In the same year, the government of Zulfiqar Bhutto was overthrown by General Zia-ul-Haq, and martial law was declared in Pakistan. Later, Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was arrested. During this time Benazir Bhutto and her mother, Nusrat Bhutto, remained in Pakistan and faced repeated detentions. Following the execution of Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto and Nusrat Bhutto were then imprisoned for six months, and later placed under house arrest to be released in April 1980.
Benazir Bhutto and her mother were elected as the co- chairpersons of the PPP. In February 1981 she formally established the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy. The MRD called for a four-point programme: an end to martial law, the restoration of the 1973 constitution, parliamentary elections, and the transfer of political power from the military to the elected representatives. The dictatorial government used various pretexts for re-arresting Benazir Bhutto. She spent time in Karachi Sukkur prisons, mostly in solitary confinement.
Benazir Bhutto's entire life was dedicated to Pakistan and its people. After only 3 years of the martyrdom of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Shaheed Benazir took the reins of a scattered and de-motivated political party in 1982, at the young age of 29 years, and restarted the struggle she had inherited as a Bhutto.
In 1988, Benazir Bhutto led her party to an election win and was appointed as the first woman prime minister in the Islamic world. During her time in office, she made immense contributions to economic growth, national defence, women development, energy, education, health, media telecom and other socioeconomic sectors. Her elected governments were toppled twice, and she had to remain in self-exile till 2007. After her return to Pakistan on 18 October 2007, she was twice the target of terrorist attacks in the short span of two months, and was martyred on 27 December 2007.
Throughout her political life spanning three decades, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto had to struggle against immense hardships including two brutal dictatorships and never shied away of any sacrifice, ultimately laying down her own life for the cause of her people.
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