Benazir’s assassination+The curious case of two neigbours

It was around 6 in the evening that I first watched the breaking news about the bomb blast killing over 25 at Benazir’s election rally speech in Rawalpindi. After following it for some time, I briskly browsed through all the news channels which were more or less reporting the same details on that suicide bomb attack. But it was when I switched to BBC; I read the flash news about Benazir being in critical condition in a hospital in ‘Pindi. Seconds later, on Headlines Today, I first read that she has been declared dead. Needless to say, the news channels went into a tizzy. Reportedly, she had been killed by two armed militants who opened fire at her car at 6.46. It’s true why they say ‘History repeats itself’ - Liaqat Khan – Pak’s first PM was assassinated at the same place decades ago as Benazir was today – ‘Pindi.

Asma Jehangir’s was sobbing while talking to NDTV 24X7 about the incident. Her hatred for the Pak army and Musharraf in particular was quite evident. The mood in Pak – my guess – is also. At the same time she was in mourning the loss of one of “Pak’s hope”. Almost all our leaders expressed the usual ‘shock’, ‘condemnable’ and ‘cowardly act’ on the fatal attack. The sympathy and sorrow expressed is a little over-the-top in my opinion. Next thing you know, our govt. may even declare a day or two of mourning and our flags held at half mast. As my friend Jimmy rightly pointed out, Benazir is no Mother Teresa to be mourned over so much. It was during her first tenure that Punjab (Pak) based Sikh militants spread their tentacles across the border and backed the Indian separatists during the Khalistan movement. J&K too witnessed mass infiltration of Mujahideen from across the LoC. Her turning a blind eye to the Pak army and ISI backed terrorist infrastructure in the valley is but obvious.

As expected the newspapers came out screaming out

CNN-IBN has really gotten on my nerves by it's 'Light a candle' campaign for Benazir

The incident now is a freaky coincidence, given the fact that Indira and Rajiv and Zulfikar Ali and Benazir – the two most famous and popular parent and child duos of the two countries met their ends on the same way in almost identical events. The storming of the Lal Masjid earlier this year was also de ja vu to Indians following the episode as something similar had taken place in ’84 when Operation Bluestar was carried out in the Golden Temple. WAIT!! But it doesn’t stop there. Musharraf’s PCO in November was supposedly to “wipe out” extremism and remove any “interference” by the judiciary. Indira Gandhi had also imposed the same in ’75 to root out corruption and lawlessness. But the popular belief on the both side during their respective emergencies was that the leaders had done so only to save their skins and remain in power. The scenes witnessed in both countries during the “emergency” times were also similar.

P.S: In case you're wondering if this is a rip off from some news article, I wrote this on the 27th but I have posted it now because I could not access the internet till today