'I see a lot of violence ahead,' said Benazir Bhutto a few hours before she was martyred

On the evening of Dec. 26, I met Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto at the Zardari house in Islamabad, as part of a delegation of the Pakistan People’s Party. We were called by Bhutto to discuss two upcoming meetings with officials from the European Union and the American Embassy that were scheduled for the next day. The meetings never took place. On Dec. 27, Bhutto, Pakistan’s most popular leader then, was martyred in Rawalpindi.

But on that day, our leader was in an upbeat mood. As always, she was well prepared with pointers. She spent the day meeting hundreds of party workers and position holders to assign and delegate work. Bhutto had a great memory. When she was alive, party members were in a habit of continuously checking and then rechecking their emails. Every few hours, our inbox would open with a new email from her, asking us for progress on our assigned duties.

There was something else that she said that day that stayed with me. At one point, in the midst of a conversation, she remarked, if I recall correctly: “I have seen a lot of blood spilled in this country and I see a lot of violence ahead. Our land has been dyed red.”

Now, in retrospect, that statement seems almost prophetic. It was as if she knew that her own blood would be spilled in a few hours.

At night, everyone had left. The two of us were left alone in the room. I then told her about a dream I had a few days ago, where I saw the battle of Karbala. She listened attentively, occasionally interrupting to ask questions about it. After a short silence, she said, “Do you know, when I came back to Pakistan and I arrived back at the Zardari House it was frozen in time. Everything was exactly as I left it. The nail polishes on my dressing table were still there, almost congealed after so many years.” 

We talked for a few more minutes before I got up to leave. I hugged her before saying goodbye, unaware that this would be the last time I would see Benazir.

Khan is a former member of Pakistan's National Assembly