Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has paid a rich tribute to Mir Murtaza Bhutto on his 30th martyrdom anniversary being observed today. "The assassination of Shaheed Mir Murtaza Bhutto was a conspiracy designed to 'kill a Bhutto and lay the blame on another Bhutto' to discredit the Bhutto family and create a pretext for overthrowing the PPP government led by his sister Benazir Bhutto," he said in a statement on Saturday.
He described Murtaza as a man of courage and conviction who devoted his life to resisting authoritarianism and standing by his beliefs. "He endured exile, witnessed the persecution of his mother and sister, and suffered the assassinations of his father and younger brother, yet refused to bow before dictatorship," the PPP chairman said, adding that the Bhutto family's sacrifices formed an inseparable part of Pakistan's democratic history, and that future generations must remember those who paid a heavy price for resisting dictatorship.
Recalling his mother's resolve after her brother's assassination, he said she had declared that "the assassins would not only be exposed but also punished". "If, after five decades, the Supreme Court had to cleanse the stain of the judicial assassination of Quaid-e-Awam Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto from the country's judicial history, I am confident that Shaheed Murtaza will also receive justice," he said.