Minutes before death, Benazir wanted to call Sharif

Islamabad: Minutes before she was killed, former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto wanted to speak to PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif whose supporters had been attacked in Rawalpindi on the same day.

As she left the venue in her bullet-proof vehicle, Bhutto said she wanted to speak to Sharif, but then she heard the “Jeay Bhutto" slogans from her supporters and decided to wave to them from the car's sunroof.

Bhutto's political secretary Nahid Khan reportedly told a mourner that the former premier initially sat in the vehicle and asked for her mobile phone, the Dawn newspaper reported on Monday.

Bhutto said she wanted to call Sharif as she had just learnt that five of his supporters had been killed in an attack as he was also campaigning in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

Khan said when Bhutto fell inside the vehicle after the attack, she thought she had lost her balance and slipped.

"I said 'Bismillah' when BB almost fell into my lap but then to my horror I saw blood oozing out of her head and she was almost unconscious," Khan recalled.

Bhutto had called Sharif a day before her assassination to discuss with him the government's alleged plan for "massive rigging" in the January 8 general elections.

The two leaders had a long telephonic conversation and talked about evolving a joint strategy to foil the rigging plans. She had also sent flowers and a cake to Sharif on his birthday on December 25.

Chief political adviser of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, Safdar Abbasi said Bhutto's last words were "Long live Bhutto".

Bhutto, who was chanting slogans along with her supporters from the sunroof of her vehicle, said "Long live Bhutto" just before she fell.

"She did not say anything more," Abbasi, who is Nahid Khan's husband, recalled.

Recounting the incident, Abbasi said, "All of a sudden there was the sound of firing. I heard the sound of a bullet.

"I saw her: she looked as though she ducked in when she heard the firing. We did not realise that she had been hit by a bullet."

He said he looked up to see Bhutto sliding back through the sunroof just before a huge explosion rocked the vehicle.

There was no sound from the 54-year-old Bhutto and Abbasi said he noticed blood seeping from a deep wound on the left side of her neck.

Abbasi said Bhutto chose to travel in the first of two waiting vehicles. "She was smiling and she was extremely happy," he said.