The founder of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto proved his words by sacrificing his life for the sake of Pakistan.

Once during his school days he wrote a letter to Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in which he asked him, “You sir, have brought us on one platform, under one flag and the cry of every Muslim should be onwards to Pakistan. Our destiny is Pakistan, our aim is Pakistan. Nobody can stop us. We are a nation by ourselves and India is a sub-continent. You have inspired us and we are proud of you. Still being in school, I am unable to help the establishment of our sacred land, but the time will come when I will even sacrifice my life for Pakistan.”

It was the great vision of Bhutto for Pakistan and rendering his life for the sake of Pakistan, he fulfilled his promise made to the founder of the country.

As this is an acknowledged fact that the Quaid laying the foundation of the country, created a separate homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent under the name of Pakistan, where the Muslims could lead their lives freely according to their free will as well as preserve their culture, civilisation, traditions and identity.

The emergence of Pakistan on the map of the world as an independent and sovereign state was a blessing, but on the other hand, it was bad luck for the new born sate that very soon, after its creation, the founding father passed away and the country fell into the hands of anti-democratic forces.

After the creation of Pakistan, the giant task for the new born state was making of the constitution, which did not materialise until 1973 and it was the dynamic, charismatic and visionary aegis of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who gave a new constitution on April 10, 1973 to the nation, which was unanimously passed by the elected government and is still intact, with the consensus of all political parties, even his opponents and the worst enemies and dictatorial regimes could not dare to abrogate it, they could only suspend it for the time being, but again it was the same PPP, which passed the 18th amendment and brought the 1973 constitution to its original form.

However, prior to the 1973 Constitution, two dictatorial regimes had tried to provide two constitutions in 1956 and 1962 but both vanished with the disappearance of those authors. After the demise of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan was left in the hands of anti-democratic and military rulers and democracy in its real sense had not prevailed nor flourished in the country and the result of those despotic rulers ruling the country was the traumatic dismemberment of Pakistan upon the fall of Dhaka on December 16, 1971, in which India held more than 93,000 Pakistani soldiers as prisoners of war and occupied 5,139 square miles of Pakistan territory, whereas, Pakistan only managed to capture 637 Indian personnel and 69 square miles of India’s territory. By then, we had lost East Pakistan, while West Pakistan was in danger to Indian advances.

Worst of all, the morale of the nation and the armed forces had touched the lowest ebb.

Such was the horrifying situation of Pakistan and in those undeniable conditions, there was no one else available in the country except Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who could save the country and raise the morale of the nation as well as the armed forces and this boost to the morale of the army, made generals rely on Bhutto.

Bhutto was out of the country at that time, but when he came back he was handed over the powers of a broken and a demoralised nation and the history of Pakistan is the witness to this glaring fact that Quaid-e-Awam Zulfikar Ali Bhutto held the remnant of his nation together and restored its self-confidence in its hour of dire need and saved the country from the absolute devastation and built a new Pakistan, raising the morale of the overpowered nation.

Bhutto was determined for social, economical and political development, as well as for stability and security of Pakistan and took various steps to introduce land and administrative reforms ensuring a better, organised and service-oriented bureaucracy. He also formulated a new labour policy.

Bhutto laid great emphasis on education, literacy and health care, apart from this, he made it possible to set up a steel mill in the country, which created a lot of employment opportunities, as well as the transfer of technology from the developed countries.

Bhutto believed in an independent foreign policy, in which, no state would be allowed to interfere in Pakistan’s relations with other states. He had the idea of building a strategic relationship with China at a time, when China was isolated. He held an Islamic Summit Conference in Lahore and strongly cemented his relations with the other Islamic countries. Using his experience as a foreign minister, Bhutto made strong relations with Afro-Asian and Islamic countries, and by 1976, he became known as the leader of the Third World countries.

Today Pakistan is a nuclear state and this credit also goes to Bhutto, even former president General (r) Pervez Musharraf publicly confessed and paid rich tributes to Bhutto in this regard.

He sacrificed his life, but made Pakistan a nuclear state. Bhutto, from the very start of his political career as the minister for fuel power and natural resources, prime minister and president, developed Pakistan into a unique Muslim state, for which he had to pay with his life.

As Bhutto revealed in his book, “If I am assassinated”, that how Kissinger had said to him, “We will make an example of you”, which they carried out by hanging him on April 4, 1979 through court trial.

PPP won the general elections of 1977 with a heavy mandate across the country, but the hidden anti-democratic forces joined hands with General Ziaul Haq at the behest of foreign powers punished Bhutto for crimes he had never committed. Rather he united the Third World countries and played a vital role for the development of Pakistan’s nuclear capacity. Soon after the imposition of martial law on July 5, 1977 Bhutto was arrested and put behind bars on charges of murder.

The proceedings in the murder case against him began in the Lahore High Court, when acting Chief Justice Maulvi Mushtaq, a Zia-appointee, belonging to Zia’s native district Jalandhar, coupled with his hatred for Bhutto, with the whole bench declaring Bhutto guilty awarded him capital punishment.

After the Lahore High Court’s decision, an appeal was filed in the Supreme Court, where a nine-member bench was constituted to be presided over by Chief Justice Anwar-ul-Haque, including Justice Qaisar Khan, Waheeduddin Ahmed, Muhammad Akram, Dorab Patel, Muhammad Haleem, Ghulam Safdar Shah, Karm Ellahi Chauhan and Nasim Hassan Shah. The proceedings lasted for a long time and one senior judge retired, whereas another was declared incapacitated owing to his illness.