Benazir Bhutto: A profile

ISLAMABAD: December 27 (Monday) marks 3rd death anniversary of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, who became the first woman leader of a Muslim nation in modern history.

Benazir Bhutto was the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state and had the honour of being twice Prime Minister of the country (1988-1990 & 1993-1996).

Benazir Bhutto was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who ruled the country from 1971 until 1977. She was born in Karachi on June 21, 1953.

She attended the Lady Jennings Nursery School and Convent of Jesus and Mary in Karachi. After two years of schooling at the Rawalpindi Presentation Convent, she was sent to the Jesus and Mary Convent at Murree. She passed her O-level examinations at the age of 15. She then went on to complete her A-Levels at the Karachi Grammar School.

After completing her early education in Pakistan, she pursued her higher education in the United States. From 1969 to 1973, she attended Radcliffe College at Harvard University, where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Benazir Bhutto studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, during which time she completed additional courses in International Law and Diplomacy.

After LMH she attended St Catherine's College, Oxford and was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Bhutto later called her time at Harvard "four of the happiest years of my life" and said it formed "the very basis of her belief in democracy".

On June 2006, she received an Honorary LL.D degree from the University of Toronto.

Later, she returned to Pakistan where her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, had been elected prime minister, but days after her arrival, the military seized power and her father was imprisoned. In 1979, he was hanged by the military government of General Zia-Ul-Haq.

Benazir Bhutto herself was also arrested many times over the following years, and was detained for three years before being permitted to leave the country in 1984.

She settled in London, but along with her two brothers, continued struggle against the military rule. Later that year. When her brother died in 1985, she returned to Pakistan in April 1986 for his burial. She was arrested for participating in an anti-govt rally.

Benazir Bhutto was sworn in as Prime Minister for the first time in 1988 at the age of 35, but was removed from office 20 months later by the then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan on grounds of alleged corruption.

In 1993 she was re-elected but was again removed in 1996 by President Farooq Leghari. She went into exile in Dubai in 1998.

Asif Ali Zardari was released from prison in 2004 and rejoined his family in London.

On October 18, 2007, in the face of death threats from radicals, and the hostility of the government, Benazir Bhutto returned to her native country.

She was greeted by enthusiastic crowds. However, within hours of her arrival, her motorcade was attacked by a suicide bomber in Karachi. She survived the assassination attempt, but over 100 party workers and citizens died in the attack.

Unfortunately she was assassinated on December 27 2007, in a terrorist attack when she was leaving Liaqaut Bagh, Rawalpindi, where had addressed PPP rally, two weeks before the scheduled general election of 2008.