“We decided to request a team from Scotland Yard to come. I sent the request to (British) Prime Minister (Gordon) Brown, and he accepted the request,” Musharraf said, adding that the British team would “assist our investigators on our weaknesses,” so that “doubts will be removed.”

“We would like to know what were the reasons that led to the martyrdom of Benazir Bhutto. I would also like to look into it,” Musharraf said in a nationally televised address.

Musharraf’s nearly 30-minute speech was his first major address since Bhutto’s death. “This is a time for reconciliation and not for confrontation,” he said. “The nation has experienced a great tragedy. Benazir Bhutto has died in the hands of terrorists. I pray to God almighty to put the eternal soul of Benazir at peace,” he said.

Hours earlier, the Election Commission of Pakistan deferred the polls by six weeks claiming that the violence after Bhutto’s assassination had damaged the poll machinery in several areas in Sindh — offices were set ablaze and poll records and material had been damaged.

Pakistan’s Election Commissioner Chief Justice (retired) Qazi Muhammad Farooq also argued that the “month of Moharramul Haram is likely to commence from January 10 and as per reports received from the Chief Secretaries, there will be full-fledged commitment of security/law enforcement agencies towards maintaining peace and tranquility an the sanctity of the holy month, and as such, will not be available for performing election duties.”

Musharraf justified this decision to delay the polls to “whatever the date EC has decided” saying he was committed to holding “free, fair, transparent and peaceful elections.”

Even as life in Pakistan’s major cities of Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi was returning to normalcy, PPP and PML (N) condemned the decision to defer the polls, whereas the pro-Musharraf PML(Q) approved of it.

Musharraf’s bid to get foreign help in Bhutto’s assassination comes at a time when questions are being raised over the government’s version of the circumstances of her death and Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party demanding a foreign probe on the lines of the UN investigation into the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

“There have been new photo clips and video clips, there have been eyewitness accounts...they will be recorded and new evidence will be taken cognizance of,” Musharraf said. By late tonight, the British Foreign Office was quoted by BBC that the Scotland Yard team will be in Pakistan by this weekend.

Musharraf once again raised a finger towards Baitullah Masood from Waziristan for the assassination of Benazir, just as Masood was alleged to be responsible for various other terrorist acts in Pakistan. Warning people who were engaged in looting and arson, he said anyone found involved would be brought to book, including officers who were negligent on duty that day.

He said that he had asked the Pak Army and the Rangers to be put on duty until elections, even later, to control the law and order situation. “People who did arsoning and looting also had a political motive, since those against these political outfits were targeted while others were not,” he said, without naming any particular outfit.

Musharraf also said that he had instructed the Prime Minister to work out a “compensation package for those who suffered losses” in the last five days.

Estimating that Rs 100 crore loss has happened in the last five days, he said that, in Sindh, the investment in development in the last eight years had been damaged in the last five days.

He also reached out to Bhutto’s supporters, saying that she worked to promote democracy and end terrorism.

“My mission is also the same,” he said. “We need to fight terrorism with full force, and I think that if we don’t succeed in the fight against terrorism, the future of Pakistan will be dark,” he said. “I appeal to the people and the nation, and to the media to support the government and the security agencies.”