The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is the latest deadly chapter plaguing South Asia's dynasties and shows violence has become entrenched in the region's political culture, analysts say. Ruling families from the Bhuttos of Pakistan to the Gandhis of India.
The Bandaranaike family of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh's Rahman family have blood-stained histories. They all have been targeted by assassins or the military since the volatile region achieved independence from Britain in the late 1940s.
"These assassinations show that violence has become part of our South Asian political culture," said Sunanda Deshapriya, director of the independent Centre for Policy Alternative think tank.
Benazir, 54, who came from a political family steeped in Pakistan's turbulent history, had just addressed a rally for upcoming elections when she was killed on Thursday in Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad.
Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's first popularly elected prime minister, was ousted by the army and hanged by the military in 1979. Her two brothers also died violent deaths - one poisoned, the other gunned down. Recalling standing by her father's grave, Benazir wrote: "At that mom until democracy returned to Pakistan."
In neighbouring India, Indira Gandhi was shot dead by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984 after ordering an assault on the religion's holiest shrine to root out separatist militants.
Her politician son, Sanjay, died performing a plane stunt, vaulting his brother, a commercial pilot, Rajiv, into politics. His mother's assassination propelled Rajiv into the premier's job.
But Rajiv was blown up by a Sri Lankan Tamil separatist suicide bomber while campaigning in 1991, after he ordered Indian troops in Sri Lanka to fight rebels who had refused to lay down arms in line with a 1987 peace pact.
In Sri Lanka, the Bandaranaike family, who produced three prime ministers and a president, suffered its first tragedy in 1959 when premier Solomon Bandaranaike was shot dead by a Buddhist monk as he was about to make concessions to the island's ethnic Tamil minority. The late premier Bandaranaike's daughter, Chandrika Kumaratunga, narrowly escaped assassination in a suicide bombing, but lost her right eye.
She became a widow in 1988 when her presidential candidate hopeful husband Vijay Kumaratunga was shot dead. Afterwards, she won a second and final term as president. But she vowed when she retired in 2005 she would not allow her two children to follow the family political tradition. "I don't want another generation of my family to suffer tragedy," she said.
Sri Lankan defence analyst Namal Perera said South Asian leaders were vulnerable because they use mass rallies to reach voters and the enthusiasm of supporters makes it often impossible for security forces to guard them. "The dynastic leaders know they are targets" but take the risks, he said.
Bangladesh's Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was shot dead by disgruntled army officers who invaded his presidential palace in 1975, also killing his wife, three sons and other relatives.
His daughter Hasina Wajed, who was away in Germany, went on to become president. But Wajed, who survived an assassination attempt in 2004 blamed on Islamic militants, now is behind bars on charges of corruption. Professor S.D. Muni of India's Jawaharlal Nehru University said the killings also underscored the "feudalistic nature" of South Asian politics.
"The entrenched families are not easy to dislodge. What you see is not the mainstream political opponents but the extremists resorting to violence to get rid of them."
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