31/12/2007 > PAKISTAN
Screen
copies of the video were published on Orkut by someone who said he was a Bhutto follower (see profile). I contacted him straight away, but he said that the file was too large and he couldn’t put it online. I phoned his mobile several times afterwards, but he didn’t answer. And the screen copies that I’d then published on my blog, just disappeared. I suppose his party told him to take them off, but I don’t know how they then appeared on Channel 4. On the video we see Bhutto’s veil rise at the moment of impact. For many, this is proof that she was killed by a bullet. We also see a man in white. It looks like he’s the killer.”
Post your questions to Awab Alvi on his profile page.
New amateur video of the Bhutto assassination
In the midst of growing uncertainties surrounding the cause of death of Benazir Bhutto, a new amateur video of the assassination was released by British Channel 4 yesterday. According to Bhutto's supporters, the video proves that the ex-Prime Minister was in fact killed by a bullet, and not a by fracturing her skull as she tried to protect herself; the explanation given by the Home Minister on Friday. One of our Observers, Awab Alvi, tells us how the video was first posted on the online network Orkut before it was found by the British channel.
Images broadcast by Channel 4 on 30 December 2007
The contributors
"We see Bhutto's veil rise at the moment of impact"
Awab Alvi is a blogger from Karachi. See his blog.
Screen
copies of the video were published on Orkut by someone who said he was a Bhutto follower (see profile). I contacted him straight away, but he said that the file was too large and he couldn’t put it online. I phoned his mobile several times afterwards, but he didn’t answer. And the screen copies that I’d then published on my blog, just disappeared. I suppose his party told him to take them off, but I don’t know how they then appeared on Channel 4. On the video we see Bhutto’s veil rise at the moment of impact. For many, this is proof that she was killed by a bullet. We also see a man in white. It looks like he’s the killer.”
There was a rumour that the
There was a rumour that the MQM headquarters (known as nine-zero') in Karachi had been hit and damaged badly. Also that Farooq Sattar, a prominent MQM leader had been injured. The city Nazim came on tv to deny this and asked people to stay calm, but the rumour had taken its toll. People were out on the street in a jiffy. Rioting. shutting shops down. cordoning off petrol pumps. Food and petrol and medicines - inaccessible for 3 days - have again become impossible to reach. I got out fom my house - a fairly decent part of town - to buy my diabetes medicine which I had run out of completely last night (and to replenish food stuff, too) - and barely managed to go near the main road when the traffic became impossible and we got jammed. I believe 2-3 roads away a car was set on fire according to my driver who had gone out to have a meal. We managed to back out in a bit and went via a back street to a medical centre which has a store, too, and got my medicine. The main door to it was locked. The emergency door had to be used. There was a burnt car outside the medical centre - a grim reminder of the rioting a couple of days ago. Am back. Food's no problem ... have a friend/nighbour (the doctor who appears on the assassination theory video on my blog) and others, so we can hole up for a couple of days ... But I think this will all be over tonight (at least until some other thing happens). Who started the rumours? Who knows ... but the consensus among the people i have phoned, chatted with, or spoken to so far (my driver, a friend's driver, colleagues, friends, relations - and only one of the lot has ever been a ppp supporter!) is that it's the government or the 'agencies' trying to create a situation that would justify postponing the elections. If held now, there's a guarantee of the PPP winning on a wave of sympathy votes and sharing power with Nawaz's party ... and that Mush and his cronies would not get many votes without army intervention.