PESHAWAR, Dec 26: The Pakistan People’s Party and its youth wing, People’s Youth Organisation, have demanded of the federal government to track down the assassins of Benazir Bhutto, killed in a suicide attack last year in Rawalpindi.

Speaking at a gathering, organised here at the Peshawar Press Club on Friday to observe the first death anniversary of their slain leader, PPP and PYO leaders held the previous military regime responsible for the assassination of their ‘beloved and brave’ leader. They asked the government to arrest the killers, identified by Banazir Bhutto in a letter that she wrote to Gen (retired) Pervez Musharraf.

PPP district vice-president Malik Himayatullah Khan, PPP Peshawar city president Syed Ayub Shah, PYO provincial president Shah Zulqarnain, general secretary Sajjad Hanif, MPA Shazia Tehmas Khan, Misbahuddin Khan, Haji Niaz Mohammad, Shah Hussain, Jehanzeb Thaikedar and Kamran Haider Kasi spoke on the life and struggle of Ms Bhutto. They said she played a major role in the strengthening of democracy and her efforts for the empowerment of the poor in the country.

They vowed that they would continue their struggle against the remnants of dictators. “We cannot trust in a government which had failed to track down the killers of our courageous leader,” said Kamran Haider Kasi. He said: “We don’t need a government, which cannot unveil the real killers of Ms Bhutto”.

In the sudden death of Ms Bhutto, he said not only PPP activists, but the downtrodden of this country had lost the hope for a meaningful change in the existing system. He warned that the PPP activists would, on their own, unveil her killers and bring them to the justice, if the government failed to do justice. He said she was not only wife of President Asif Ali Zardari, but an identity of Pakistan across the world. He demanded of the government to order a fresh inquiry into the assassination of Ms Bhutto.

Speaking on the occasion, MPA Shazia Tehmas said that the party had not forgotten the brutal murder of its leader. “The restoration of the present fledgling democracy is a result of the sacrifices made by Ms Bhutto and her workers killed on Oct 18, 2007 in Karachi and on Dec 27, 2007 outside Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi. —Correspondent