‘If assassination is the price I must pay …’

An eyewitness report of the bombing of Benazir Bhutto’s bus

It’s Saturday night on Clifton beach and men in shalwar kameez are selling rides on short white horses or camels decorated with coloured bobbles. Stalls lit up by halogen lights offer roasted cobs of corn and cups of sugarcane juice ground from a large wheel. A noisy crowd gathers to place bets for a fight between a snake and a mongoose. Everywhere there are people — rich Karachi-ites out in their gold-threaded finery and conspicuous designer watches; the poor in plastic sandals. Pakistan doesn’t look like a country at war with itself or a people living in fear of extremists.

From our rooftop table we look down on Bilawal roundabout, which is plastered with red, black and green flags of the Pakistan People’s Party and posters of a smiling Benazir Bhutto, her arms raised in triumph. Now the posters and flags seem mocking, an awful reminder of something Karachi would like to forget. For, as Bhutto herself put it, ‘triumph had been turned to tragedy’. Less than 48 hours earlier her great return had been brought to a bloody shuddering halt by two bombs in which 140 of her supporters were killed and hundreds injured.

In the restaurant, I jumped when the waiter dropped a metal tray, sending it clanging to the floor. I wished the drinks list offered something stronger than fresh lime-soda. For I had been one of perhaps 15 old friends and party leaders on top of Bhutto’s bus, narrowly escaping with our lives and emerging covered with blood and bits of flesh from the three guards blown to pieces on that open roof.

It had all started so well, or at least with such high spirits. The flight from London was packed with rowdy Bhutto supporters, including one from the Canadian branch of the PPP who downed an entire bottle of Bacardi and ended up rolling in the aisles.