A REPORT sent by the Rawalpindi General Hospital to the Health Department of the Punjab provincial government said all efforts by its doctors to revive Ms Bhutto failed and she was declared dead exactly 41 minutes after she was brought at its emergency department at 5.35pm with open wounds on her left temporal bone from which “brain matter was exuding”.

It said the PPP leader was not breathing at the time and her pulse and blood pressure “were not recordable”.

The report said “immediate resuscitation (process) was started” and she was taken to the operation theatre where the same was done by a team of doctors headed by Prof Musaddiq Khan, principal of the Rawalpindi Medical College.

“Left antrolateral thoracotomy for open cardiac massage was performed,” it said and added: “In spite of all the possible measures she could not be revived and (was) declared dead at 1816 (6.16pm) hours.”

The report said a post-mortem examination of Ms Bhutto’s body was not carried out at the hospital “because the district administration and police had not requested the hospital authorities (for this)”.

Ms Bhutto was shot not far from where Pakistan’s first prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan was killed by an assassin’s bullet on Oct 16, 1951.—Dawn Report