“Everyone in Pakistan cried that night. I tell you there was not one person in this country that did not cry. She should not have been killed. A terrible thing has happened.” This is what the first person I talked to in Lahore said. It was the driver who drove me into the city along a highway that was not there when I last came here six years ago. He was a supporter of Pervez Musharraf and said this was because he had seen more progress in Pakistan in the past ten years than ever before but he felt the loss of Benazir “as if a member of my own family died.” He was right when he said everyone does. It’s as if by dying her terrible, needless death, she stole the tattered hope this country continues to have that one day there will be real democracy here.

That Benazir’s death dominates everything that is happening in Pakistan I noticed before I got to Lahore. On the front page of the newspaper the PIA stewardess handed me as we took off from Delhi at dusk was a macabre Wanted poster that had pictures of a body-less head, its face stitched up as if post mortem, alongside the hazy picture of the two men in the crowd now believed to be Benazir’s killers.

Under the pictures were these words. “Information about terrorists involved in Liaqat Bagh, Rawalpindi incident of 27th December 2007. Rs 1 crore cash award. The public is hereby notified that the two individuals in the above photograph as the accused terrorists involved in the cowardly and inhuman terrorist act of Liaqat Bagh, Rawalpindi which resulted in the tragic martyrdom of former Prime Minister Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and others. The Government of Punjab has announced a cash Award of Rs 1 crore for lead information and any solid evidence.” The Wanted poster went on to assure informants that their identity would not be revealed.

... contd.