Bhutto seeks in-depth bombing probe

“We have to modify our campaign to some extent because of the suicide bombings,” she said but added, “We will continue to meet the public”.

 

“The closet supporters of militants and al-Qaeda are determined to stop the restoration of democracy because they see it as a threat to the structure of militancy they have put into place,” Bhutto said.

 

 

More than 140 people are thought to have been killed and about 400 wounded in two blasts on Thursday, which occurred as hundreds of thousands gathered to cheer Bhutto just hours after she returned to the country.

 

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But Imran Khan, an opposition politician and the former Pakistan cricket captain, said in an interview on Sunday that Bhutto had “only herself to blame” for the attack.

 

“The bombing of Benazir Bhutto’s cavalcade as she paraded through Karachi on Thursday night was a tragedy almost waiting to happen.

 

You could argue it was inevitable,” Khan wrote in Britain’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

 

Khan said: “Everyone here knew there was going to be a huge crowd turning up to see her return after eight years in self-imposed exile.

 

Everyone also knows that there has been a spate of suicide bombings in Pakistan lately.”

 

 

Bhutto has condemned the bombing as an “attack on democracy”, but Khan said that the deal with Musharraf, which gave her amnesty from corruption charges, had undermined democracy.

 

Bhutto has also been criticised by her niece, Fatima Bhutto, who accused her of exposing the crowds to danger for her own “personal theatre”.

 

In video

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz speaks to Al Jazeera on the attack on Benazir Bhutto

The newspaper columnist and poet said of her aunt: “She insisted on this grand show, she bears a responsibility for these deaths and for these injuries.”

 

Bhutto visited Karachi’s Jinnah hospital on Sunday, where many of the badly wounded were taken after the blasts.

 

About 100 supporters cheered the former prime minister as she waved to supporters before getting into a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

 

Bhutto spent about 15 minutes at the hospital, visiting survivors and distributing money to them, according to Saimi Jamali, a senior doctor at the hospital.

 

Police on Sunday were questioning three men about the bombing. The men were detained in southern Punjab province and brought them to Karachi for questioning.

 

A senior investigator told the Associated Press news agency that they were linked to a vehicle that police believe was used by one of the attackers, who threw a grenade at the convoy.