International   

Benazir Bhutto to avoid mass rallies

KARACHI: The former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said Tuesday she had received a new death threat but will start campaigning in Pakistini cities in the next couple of days, avoiding mass rallies.

Five days after the suicide bombing in Karachi, Ms. Bhutto said her lawyer received a letter from an unidentified “friend of Al-Qaeda” threatening to slaughter her “like a goat.”

Ms. Bhutto said the letter was addressed to her lawyer, Farooq Naik, and had been left for him at the Supreme Court in Islamabad.

“There are elements who want who to kill us,” she told reporters at her heavily guarded residence in this southern Pakistan city.

“They are petrified that the Pakistan People’s Party will return [to power] and that democracy will return.”

“They are trying to derail the democratic process because they know if the people are employed and educated the forces of extremism and terrorism will be weakened.”

The authenticity of the letter could not be confirmed. Ms. Bhutto said the writer claimed to be the “head of the suicide bombers and a friend of Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.”

Ms. Bhutto returned on Thursday from eight years in exile to campaign for parliamentary elections due in January, after months of talks with Gen. Pervez Musharraf that could see them working side-by-side in the next government. She said her party had decided she should avoid mass rallies because of the risk of bombings. “The party decided I should go from Karachi to Islamabad, Lahore or Larkana [her hometown] in the next couple of days. We will not be holding public rallies but will be travelling to meet the people in other provinces,” she said. — AP

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Turkey, Iraq count on diplomacy
Osama stress on unity
Patience running out: Erdogan
NC rejects Maoists’ demands
Benazir Bhutto to avoid mass rallies
China all set to launch lunar orbiter
Aircraft were detected: Colombo
PPP-Musharraf talks put on hold
Musharraf package for Northern Areas
Bahrain outlaws sponsorship Gulf round-up
“India committed to gas pipeline project”
3 Indian children die of suspected food poisoning

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu