Murtaza Bhutto

Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto (مُرتضٰی بُھٹّو, 18 September 1954 – 20 September 1996) was a Pakistani politician and leader of al-Zulfiqar, a Pakistani left-wing militant organization.

The son of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, he earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and a master's degree from the University of Oxford.

Born into the Bhutto family in Karachi on 18 September 1954, to Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Nusrat Bhutto, he received his early education at St. Mary's Academy.

He was born in a Sindhi Rajput Bhutto family, and has three siblings: Benazir, Shahnawaz and Sanam.

He later passed his 'O' levels from the Karachi Grammar School in 1971.

In 1972, Murtaza went off to Harvard University where he took his bachelor's degree.

For a period of time, he was the roommate of Texas gubernatorial candidate and former mayor of Houston, Bill White.

In 1976, Bhutto graduated with his thesis entitled "Modicum of Harmony".

His thesis dealt with the spread of nuclear weapons in general, and the implications of India's nuclear weapons on Pakistan in particular.

Murtaza went on to attend Christ Church Oxford, his father's alma mater, for a three-year Master of Letters (MLitt) degree course.

Bhutto submitted his master thesis, containing a vast argumentative work on Nuclear strategic studies, where he advocated for Pakistan's right to develop its nuclear deterrence programme to counter Indian nuclear programme.

While in Europe studying for his PhD studies, his sister, Benazir Bhutto, had notified Murtaza Bhutto about the coup d'état led by General Zia-ul-Haq.

Murtaza, along with his siblings, returned to Pakistan immediately.

However, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto advised his children to leave the country in the shortest time possible.

Murtaza was on the verge of rushing home when he received a message from his father asking him to remain abroad where he could mobilise an international campaign for his release.

Murtaza had been in Pakistan until Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's government was overthrown on 5 July 1977.

Along with other family members, Murtaza had returned to Al-Murtaza, Larkana, and at the time was busy helping in the preparations for the elections scheduled for October 1977.

But on 16 September 1977 when Ali Bhutto was arrested at Al-Murtaza, he asked his son to leave the country.

After Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was sentenced, Murtaza joined hands with his brother, Shahnawaz Bhutto, to initiate a campaign to muster international support to revoke the death penalty looming over his father's head.

Leaders from Syria, Libya, and the PLO were particularly supportive.

Mercy appeals were sent by several heads of state to General Zia-ul-Haq; however, all these appeals were disregarded and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was executed.

Murtaza and Shahnawaz both cut short their respective courses of study and decided to devote themselves to avenge their father's death.

Eventually they resorted to taking up arms, their main target being Zia-ul-Haq.

This marked the beginning of a new and more controversial era in Murtaza's life.

Zia had deposed the populist Bhutto regime in a military coup in July 1977.

Bhutto was hanged by the Zia regime after a closed military trial.

Ali Bhutto's two sons, Murtaza and Shahnawaz went into exile in Afghanistan which was at that time controlled by communist revolutionary government of Babrak Karmal.

Like his elder sister, Benazir, Murtaza Bhutto was a novice to active politics until 1978 when his father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was sentenced to death by the Lahore High Court.

In the span of 15 years, however, Murtaza managed to gain considerable notoriety for a brand of politics that has moved in a direction that was diametrically opposed to Benazir's. Al-Zulfiqar was a leftist insurgency and militant organisation of Pakistan.

It was formed in the late seventies by the sons of former Pakistani Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was also the Chairman of Pakistan's biggest political party, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

Murtaza founded al-Zulfiqar after his father was overthrown and executed in 1979 by the military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq.

Al-Zulfiqar was formed to avenge the execution of Ali Bhutto by the right-wing military regime of General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq in 1979.

In 1981, he claimed responsibility for the murder of conservative politician Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi, and the hijacking of a Pakistan International Airlines airplane from Karachi, during which a hostage was killed.

In exile in Afghanistan, Murtaza was sentenced to death in absentia by a military tribunal.

He returned to Pakistan in 1993 and was arrested for terrorism on the orders of his sister, then-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Released on bail, Murtaza successfully contested elections to the Sindh Provincial Assembly, becoming a vocal critic of Benazir and her husband Asif Ali Zardari.

After increasing tensions between the two, he was shot dead along with six associates in a police encounter near his home in Karachi on 20 September 1996.

Benazir's government was dismissed a month later by President Farooq Leghari, primarily citing Murtaza's death and corruption.

Zardari was arrested and indicted for Murtaza's murder, but acquitted in 2008.

Murtaza's own faction of his father's Pakistan People's Party–Shaheed Bhutto, remains active in politics.