THE UN commission finally came up with its report on Benazir Bhutto's murder. The Secretary-General handed it over to Pakistan's UN envoy for further action.

The UN Secretariat in New York had decided that it was too important a report to be kept hidden from the public and at a hurriedly arranged conference made the report public. On the other hand, it was also reportedly indicated by the Pakistan mission that on receiving the report the envoy himself would share its contents at a news conference. But the media event was postponed at the last minute and it was announced that the findings would now be made public in Islamabad. Reasons not given.

The head of the UN commission outlined some of the findings. Among others, it held the 'government' of former president Pervez Musharraf responsible for the murder, saying it failed to provide adequate security cover to the assassinated leader.

It also blamed the PPP's own security cordon around her. However, no particular individual, group or functionary of the former government had been named or accused of complicity in the crime.

The commission mostly relied on evidence, collected by talking to the same set of officials and other people who had already made their views public.

It also failed to remove question marks on basic issues, such as why was the scene of the crime hosed and why was BB's post-mortem examination not conducted?

After having lost all the evidences, including the forensic ones, and a lapse of about two years, there was left very little for the commission to probe. It was believed that the commission was not going to find anything new or such things as were not already known.

It was also believed that the year-long UN probe was just a waste of time, energy and money.

The earlier request by President Asif Ali Zardari for delaying the report by two weeks and now the decision of withholding the document are likely to give rise to unnecessary speculations and cause more suspicions.

With the two developments in as many weeks, people now may become a bit crazy and ask was all that for nothing? They might fall prey to suspicions that there was something in the report that could be really revealing and startling.

A PAKISTANI
Via email