AS we recall the day that Benazir Bhutto fell victim to an organized terrorist attack after a rally in Rawalpindi's Liaquat Bagh, it is difficult not to juxtapose the seriousness of the crime with the subsequent confusion in investigating it properly. Three years on, Pakistan still has little conclusive evidence about who planned or perpetrated the assassination, or under whose ultimate authority the crime scene investigation was so mismanaged, the Dawn said in its editorial. Various people have been blamed on different counts and the court proceedings continue. A three-member UN inquiry committee, which cost the government $5 million, presented a report in April but no action was taken on it – other than the military establishment terming it “a bid to malign the national institution.” Over the years, other committees have been constituted but the full scope of their findings has hardly been made public. Potential avenues of investigation surface now and then, only to take us nowhere. Last week, for example, it was reported that two former senior police officials, who are in custody, had informed investigators that certain intelligence officials had been in the picture on Dec. 27, 2007. However, we have yet to find out who these officials are, or what, if at all, was the role they played. Similarly, the interior ministry said recently that it had sent a questionnaire to former president Pervez Musharraf but one wonders if the public will have access to any of his replies, if indeed he does cooperate in the matter. All this confusion is all the more shocking given that a PPP-led government is at the helm. Besieged though it is by the many issues, such as terrorism and severe economic woes, that confront the country, one would have expected a greater degree of interest in solving one of the most important murder cases the country has ever witnessed. Sadly, it seems as though the investigation of Ms. Bhutto's death may go the same way as that of another former prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, whose assassination remains unsolved to this day. __
