An Indian journalist from Zee TV asked if there is any truth in the rumour that the Americans intend to whisk Pakistan’s nuclear weapons to a safe place to prevent them falling into the hands of terrorists. The President said, “There is no possibility of extremists coming into government in Pakistan and therefore taking over the nuclear assets...every individual Pakistani is one on this issue and we cannot accept any kind of threat on them at all’.

After the press conference, all of us watching agreed that he looked scared and nervous but not everyone agreed on who killed Benazir. Over dinner, the subject continued to be discussed and we took a poll. The majority opinion was that she was killed by “jehadi elements mixed with the ISI.” There could have been no reason for the government to kill her, they said, because the biggest loser is Musharraf.

He is already in power for another five years and it would have helped his international image to have Benazir as Prime Minister. Especially because it is now widely accepted that she came home as a result of a deal that had the blessings of the United States.

The only person who disagreed was a politician from Nawaz Sharif’s party who said, “The last thing that Pervez Musharraf wants is a Prime Minister with a tendency to independence and an international image.” The sadness of her death permeated the cold, winter evening and made almost all other conversation impossible.

The next morning, I was woken early by the muezzin’s call. So I decided to wander about the bazaars of the old city to get a sense of what the “aam aadmi” felt. I drove past the Badshahi Mosque, magnificent in veils of early morning fog. The old city was awake. Chickens were being slaughtered at street corners and there were people in little restaurants drinking long glasses of steaming tea. Everywhere were posters from the postponed election. Benazir, white veiled and beautiful seemed larger than life and I had to ask who the others were. “The arrow is the PPP symbol,” says a man called Ghulam Qadir “the sher is Nawaz Sharif’s party and the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) doesn’t matter. They are finished. That’s why the election was postponed, to give them a chance.”

... contd.