Benazir Bhutto visits bomb survivors in Pakistan hospitals

KARACHI – Former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto yesterday visited hospitals to meet those wounded in last week’s devastating suicide attack that turned her homecoming parade into bloody carnage.

Bhutto was flanked by heavy security carrying automatic weapons as she made her first public outing since Thursday’s blasts in Karachi, which killed 139 people and ruined her planned triumphant return after eight years in exile. She waved to dozens of supporters upon leaving Jinnah Hospital after she handed out envelopes containing US$84 dollars to the injured and thanked staff for treating them.”My wounds were healed when I met Benazir Bhutto, it was the biggest thing in my life.I feel no pain now,” Imran Ally, hit in the leg and chest by metal debris from the blasts, told AFP.Bhutto, the first female leader of an Islamic nation, later reiterated calls for a full investigation into the suicide attack, the worst in Pakistan’s history, which also left 400 people wounded.She said police and her own private security force were ‘100 per cent’.”But unfortunately lights were switched off in a manner of sabotage and we could see nothing,” she told private ARY TV after visiting a second hospital.”We want an investigation into it.I don’t want security for myself alone, I want security for all politicians especially opposition politicians,” she said.Bhutto has pledged since the attack to stay to combat Islamic militancy and fight general elections in January, seen as a key step to returning the country of some 160 million people to civilian rule.Her hospital visits came as police questioned three people over the attack, which sparked a third straight day of protests yesterday by her supporters in several cities in southern Pakistan, officials said.The three suspects were linked to a car from which an attacker threw a grenade into the hundreds of thousands of people who gathered to greet Bhutto’s convoy, a police official said.Seconds later a suicide bomber blew himself up in the massive crowd, which had gathered to see Bhutto just hours after the two-time premier set foot on Pakistani soil for the first time since 1999.Police have also quizzed seven militants in jails in Karachi for possible information on the blasts, added the official, who has investigated several other attacks in the volatile port city.Bhutto’s aides yesterday handed in an official crime report on behalf of their leader, asking police to “investigate so that the accused and their conspirators may be brought to book and punished according to the law.”Nampa-AFPShe waved to dozens of supporters upon leaving Jinnah Hospital after she handed out envelopes containing US$84 dollars to the injured and thanked staff for treating them.”My wounds were healed when I met Benazir Bhutto, it was the biggest thing in my life.I feel no pain now,” Imran Ally, hit in the leg and chest by metal debris from the blasts, told AFP.Bhutto, the first female leader of an Islamic nation, later reiterated calls for a full investigation into the suicide attack, the worst in Pakistan’s history, which also left 400 people wounded.She said police and her own private security force were ‘100 per cent’.”But unfortunately lights were switched off in a manner of sabotage and we could see nothing,” she told private ARY TV after visiting a second hospital.”We want an investigation into it.I don’t want security for myself alone, I want security for all politicians especially opposition politicians,” she said.Bhutto has pledged since the attack to stay to combat Islamic militancy and fight general elections in January, seen as a key step to returning the country of some 160 million people to civilian rule.Her hospital visits came as police questioned three people over the attack, which sparked a third straight day of protests yesterday by her supporters in several cities in southern Pakistan, officials said.The three suspects were linked to a car from which an attacker threw a grenade into the hundreds of thousands of people who gathered to greet Bhutto’s convoy, a police official said.Seconds later a suicide bomber blew himself up in the massive crowd, which had gathered to see Bhutto just hours after the two-time premier set foot on Pakistani soil for the first time since 1999.Police have also quizzed seven militants in jails in Karachi for possible information on the blasts, added the official, who has investigated several other attacks in the volatile port city.Bhutto’s aides yesterday handed in an official crime report on behalf of their leader, asking police to “investigate so that the accused and their conspirators may be brought to book and punished according to the law.”Nampa-AFP