Pak rebels planned to kill Zia in India: Report

The plan was conceived by Murtaza Bhutto, the eldest son of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto whom the Army had executed in 1979 after toppling him from power. Murtaza launched Al-Zulfikar in Kabul and decided to avenge his father’s death and bring back the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) into power.

Murtaza planned the assassination of Gen Zia during his Delhi visit in 1983 in connection with the non-aligned summit. He selected four Muhajir youth for the job as they would have no language problem in Delhi because they all spoke Urdu. All four weregiven English names and fake British passports were bought in Amsterdam. Their leader Tipu was given the name of Victor Jones. The weapons for the assassination were to be secretly transported from Kabul to Delhi without the knowledge of the Afghan government. But as the “would-be assassins” arrived in Dubai from Tripoli, on their way to New Delhi, three of them were caught but Tipu managed to reach Delhi. He telephoned Murtaza in Tripoli to say he would do the job single-handedly if provided with weapons. Muftaza asked one Shinwari to provide arms to Tipu but chickened out at the last moment.

On the appointed day Tipu reached the shrine of Nizamuddin and watched Zia alighting from his car very close to him. Later he returned to Kabul and killed Shinwari, writes Raja Anwar. Incidentally, this book has come out at a time when Benazir Bhutto’s husband, Asif Zardari, is facing a charge of killing Murtaza. The case has been going on for than a year, but witnesses are not willing to come forward, neither arejudges willing to hear the case.