Bhutto’s Brother Killed By Police Estranged Sibling Of Pakistani Prime Minister Dies In Shootout At Rally He Called To Demand She Resign

Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s estranged brother was shot and killed Friday in a gun battle with police outside his Karachi home, hospital officials said.

Witnesses said at least six other people also were killed and several wounded in the confrontation. Police said two officers were injured.

Murtaza Bhutto, 42, was rushed to Mideast Hospital with six gunshot wounds to his neck and abdomen, and died on the operating table, hospital officials said.

A distraught Benazir Bhutto rushed to Karachi from Islamabad, said Bashir Riaz, a family friend. “As you can imagine, she is very upset.”

The two siblings had been estranged since Murtaza Bhutto returned to Pakistan in 1993 after 16 years of exile in Syria.

The Bhutto family, a wealthy land-owning clan in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province, has been repeatedly struck by tragedy over the past two decades.

The prime minister’s father, who spent two years in jail after being overthrown in a bloodless coup in 1977, was executed by hanging in the middle of the night without any family by his side.

Benazir Bhutto and her mother spent four years in jail during martial law, were tortured and later lived in exile in England.

In 1986, her younger brother, Shahnawaz Bhutto, died mysteriously in France.

There were conflicting reports about how Friday’s shooting began.

Witnesses said the gunbattle broke out outside Murtaza Bhutto’s home in a posh Karachi neighborhood after a rally he had called to demand his sister’s resignation.

They said dozens of Murtaza Bhutto’s supporters attacked the Karachi police chief’s house, which is located across the street. The police chief’s guards responded by opening fire, they said.

But police officials said the incident started when Murtaza Bhutto’s supporters fired on police, who had stopped their vehicles to search for several suspects wanted on terrorism and murder charges.

After the gunbattle, a curfew was imposed on the area.