KARACHI: The son of the former prime minister of Pakistan, Zulfiqar Ali (ZA) Bhutto and the brother of the martyred, Benazir Bhutto, Mir Murtaza Bhutto was shot dead by the police eighteen years ago on the same day (today) when he was near his home in Clifton, Karachi.
Mir Murtaza Bhutto was born in Karachi on 18th September, 1954 and was the elder son of the former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. He got early education in Karachi and then he got education in Harvard and Oxford universities and took interest in politics in the early age.
While he was in exile, Murtaza Bhutto kept making his efforts for the release and stopping the hanging punishment of his father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in the then government of Ziaul Haq, the dictator who forced Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to step down. Mir Murtaza was accused of forming an organization, named as “Al-Zulfiqar” and hijacking a PIA flight that was to head to Kabul, Afghanistan.
After the hanging of ZA Bhutto and the end of Zia’s dictatorship, Pakistan People’s Party led by Benazir Bhutto was elected to govern the country but Mir Murtaza Bhutto could not come back. He came back in the second era of the government of Benazir Bhutto and formed another political party, named as People’s Party Shaheed Bhutto. He was elected to be the member of Sindh Assembly.
Mir Murtaza along with his companions was gunned down by the police nearby his home, 70 Clifton when he was going home after attending a public meeting on 20th September, 1996. He was buried in the ancestral graveyard in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh in Larkana.