ISLAMABAD, Jan 6: The Scotland Yard team, which is probing into the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, has been asked to complete its investigations before elections.

“We have asked them (the Scotland Yard team) to complete the investigations before Feb 18,” caretaker Interior Minister Lt-Gen (retd) Hamid Nawaz told Dawn on Sunday.

However, the minister clarified that the government had not given any specific deadline to the investigators. The minister said: “We have asked the Scotland Yard team to brief the media about the investigations if they have anything to share.”

An interior ministry official said that the British team on Sunday again visited the Liaquat Bagh, where Ms Bhutto was assassinated and recorded statements of some eyewitnesses.

He dismissed media reports about suicide bombers having entered Islamabad and Rawalpindi. “If we had information about terrorists, they may have been arrested,” he said.

Scotland Yard’s forensic experts went to the Police Lines and re-examined Ms Bhutto’s vehicle.

A source said the British team asked Pakistani investigators to re-enact the scene when Ms Bhutto emerged from the car’s sun-roof.

According to sources, the British investigators spent more than an hour and a half examining the car with hi-tech equipment apparently to verify the government’s claim that Ms Bhutto died of a skull fracture caused by a lever attached to the sun-roof of her vehicle.

They also took some photographs.

One of the vehicle’s tyres had been ruptured by the blast.

The sources quoted Pakistani investigators as having informed the British team that Ms Bhutto remained standing in the vehicle for about 30 seconds, providing an opportunity to the suicide bomber to strike. They said that the bomber was probably moving towards Raja Bazaar but he struck when he saw the vehicle stopping and Ms Bhutto emerging from its sun-roof.

The source said it was yet to be determined if the suicide bomber was acting alone or if there was someone else to back him up.

The UK team later visited the ‘investigation centre’ set up in the Police Lines.

Pakistani investigators, the sources said, had recovered a dismembered right hand whose fingers were frozen in such a manner as if they had been holding a pistol. They had also recovered a pistol from the crime scene from which three shots had been fired while a fourth one was found stuck inside it.

Fingerprints of the hand had been taken and officials awaited results of its DNA test, the sources said.

A source close to the investigation said that the team was provided evidence collected from the crime scene and that it had been “examined very carefully”.

The foreign team is expected to visit people injured by the blast on Monday.