Murtaza Bhutto - Aftermath

Aftermath

Sources said that when Bhutto arrived at the Mideast hospital in an official car, blood was oozing from his mouth. He tried to take off the oxygen mask but the doctors kept replacing it. Bhutto then collapsed and lost consciousness. At this time Bhutto's wife Ghinva and daughter Fatimah, both of them crying, reached the hospital. They were ordered out of the ICU, where the only official present was the Deputy Commissioner South, Arif Elahi. Soon the specialist doctors from Jinnah Hospital reached the Mideast Hospital. No anesthetist was available at the hospital, which normally does not treat medico-legal cases. Murtaza was shot in his collarbone, chest, leg and abdomen. His body refused to accept a blood transfusion while he was being operated upon. Doctors revived his heart once when it stopped but failed to do so the second time. Murtaza Bhutto died at 11:45 p.m. but his death was not announced by the hospital authorities until 12:25 a.m.

On Saturday, the body was taken for burial by helicopter to Larkana, Sindh. The pilot of one of the helicopters which carried the body had difficulty in lifting the chopper as a number of supporters of Bhutto from Lyari, Karachi clung to the skids in a bid to board the aircraft. While the helicopter managed to lift off, many of the visibly moved supporters fell down. One, however, clung to the helicopter. The helicopter flew up to sea side and then returned and landed at Bagh Ibn-e-Qasim where the youth clinging to the helicopter's skid fell down and the chopper flew away.

Bhutto was laid to rest at the family graveyard in Garhi Khuda Buksh near Larkano.