ISLAMABAD, Dec 28: Deposed Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry condemned the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and other innocent citizens on Thursday and declared it a cruel and cowardly act and well calculated attack on the forces who ever hoped for true democracy.

“This has come as a shock to the entire nation including myself,” Justice Chaudhry said in a statement released by Advocate Athar Minallah here on Friday.

“This is a wound which will probably never heal,” he said and offered sympathies to Ms Bhuttos husband Asif Ali Zardari and her children.

“My sympathies are with the families of all innocent lives lost and the nation who stand united in this moment of grief,” the statement. Muhammad Farooq Rehmani Convener All parties Hurriyat Conference AJK and Chairman Jammu and Kashmir People’s Freedom League have lamented the death of the former prime minister.

Condemning the Rawalpindi tragedy he said in the death of Benazir Bhutto Pakistan had lost a great national leader of world stature whose vacuum could not be filled easily in near future. He urged the government to investigate the tragic and horrible episode and bring culprits to justice.

HRW: Meanwhile the Human Rights Watch (HRW) expressed its deep sorrow at the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and said she was a democrat who believed in the supremacy of constitutional rule and throughout her career, sought power through the ballot box.—Staff Reporter