‘All the injured workers wanted to know was if BB was fine’

Everything was going to be alright now that their leader had returned after ending her 9-year self-exile. This was the expectation of Benazir Bhutto’s supporters, a decade ago today, as they went to welcome her at the Karachi airport.

Little did they know that this was the last time over a hundred of them would be seeing their leader in all her glory as twin bomb blasts ripped through the crowd when her homecoming rally reached the Karsaz intersection on Sharea Faisal hours after her landing.

It was apparent that the blasts that struck past midnight shook the entire country, but it was the carnage that left everyone incomprehensibly horrified; the city had never before seen so much of it at this hour.

Recounting the day, Azhar Shah, who was part of the election office back in 2008, said he was accompanying former Senator Rukhsana Zuberi when he received information that streetlights along Sharea Faisal had been turned off.

“We were surprised because the authorities had placed jammers yet we were able to communicate. We headed towards KESC’s office near Awami Markaz to notify them of the electricity problem. We were at a little distance from the main truck when we heard the sound of the explosion.”

Instead of heading to the blast site, they decided to direct their efforts to rescue work because they could see that there were mass causalities. “Most of the injured being brought to medical centres were workers and despite their wounds, all they wanted to know was if BB was fine,” said Shah.  

‘And then they fell’

Fifteen years old at the time, Asim Raza, who had gone to the rally with his father, an old supporter of the Pakistan Peoples Party, said, “I headed to the jalsa after midnight after it was confirmed that schools were to remain closed the next day. I joined them near Awami Markaz. There was constant movement.”

The number of attendees was not decreasing, rather each one of them was in a state of unending cheerfulness, Raza recalled.   “I remember this one worker very clearly; he was standing on a car, clad in colours of the party’s flag. He danced for an hour straight on the anthems.

“We then headed towards the Karsaz flyover, and were just walking till we reached the site where the blasts were soon to happen. I believe the distance from the point of blast to where I stood was roughly one streetlight to another. I was behind the car following the truck in which Benazir was present,” he shared.

Soon after, they heard a sound of a spark and even though they could not foresee the next moment, Raza’s father told him to stay calm if things went south. “He clasped my hand tightly and told me stay where I was and not run.”

The crowd surrounding the truck comprised hordes of people, he said, recounting that it was impossible to move through them. “The blast hit, and all those people just vanished!”

Raza had moved to the service lane from the footpath, and as he glanced towards the site from where the sound came, that area was covered in blood.

“The workers were making sure that Benazir was transferred to a safer place.” As he moved towards his house, not too far from Karsaz, some of party’s key representatives including Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Rehman Malik and Farooq Naik came to his place because they needed to use phones.

“I remember Malik cleaning bits and pieces of flesh that were stuck to his hair,” said Raza. “Later when they had left, I saw a pile of human remains at the corner of the footpath. The sight was traumatising.”

Speaking about the rescue efforts, Raza said that even though the incident took place late at night, the ambulances were able to arrive quickly because the roads were considerably clear.

‘Five bodies in every ambulance’

Faisal Sheikh, former president of the Peoples Students Federation, also present at the rally to welcome the slain leader, shared that the workers and supporters had only come out of devotion.

“She had come just a few days after Eid but her homecoming gave the feeling that Eid had returned.” But the blast turned it into a dark one, Sheikh solemnly recalled.

“I was alongside the truck during the rally and had stepped away to tend to a person who felt sick. The next thing I knew there was a blast, but instead of looking after themselves the workers rushed to make sure BB was alright,” he said.

He added that the next day was spent in hospitals as one ambulance after the other kept bringing in bodies; there were at least five in each ambulance.