Islamabad, April 22: The ruling Pakistan People’s Party does not believe in “politics of revenge” and the people responsible for the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto will be brought to justice in accordance with the law, President Asif Ali Zardari said on Wednesday.
“We do not believe in the politics of revenge. The law will take its own course and the people who are responsible for the martyrdom of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto will be brought to justice, not to revenge,” Zardari told a gathering of PPP activists at Bahawalpur in Punjab province.
“Neither (former president) Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Shaheed took any revenge and nor will we do so,” said Zardari, speaking in the local Seraiki language.
Zardari’s comments came in the wake of a UN commission’s report that held former military ruler Pervez Musharraf’s regime responsible for not providing adequate security to Bhutto despite numerous threats to her life.
Bhutto was killed by a suicide bomber in December 2007. The President recalled that when his late wife Benazir Bhutto took oath as the Prime Minister in 1988, she had said, “Today I have taken revenge for my father.”
Zardari referred to the enactment of the 18th Constitutional Amendment Bill, which strips him of sweeping powers, and said the PPP has fulfilled its promise of restoring the Constitution of 1973 in its true spirit and protecting the rights of provinces.
The Parliament is supreme and its strength is the strength of people, he said.
Zardari added that he did not think anyone could alter an amendment adopted unanimously and with consensus by Parliament.
The PPP had implemented 80 per cent of its manifesto after ridding the Constitution of the “stains of dictators”, he said.
All the “trash” inserted into the constitution by dictators has been removed by the PPP-led government, he added.
–PTI