27 terror groups were involved in Benazir's assassination: Rehman Malik

Islamabad, Feb 22 (ANI): Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said 27 terror groups were behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Briefing a Sindh Assembly session, Malik blamed Baitullah Mehsud, the Haqqani network and the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) for planning the murder.

The Dawn reports that Malik and the Joint Investigation Team chief Khalid Qureshi gave a detailed presentation, showing the suspects involved in the case.

Malik accused former president Pervez Musharraf of not providing adequate security to Bhutto.

He said the present government had decided to bring back Musharraf to the country to face trial and added that red warrants would be issued through the Interpol for this objective.

Musharraf has strongly denied his involvement in Bhutto's assassination, saying that he had informed Bhutto about the threats to her life before the first attack in October 2007.

"I was not in contact with the slain PPP chairperson after October 18," he said, adding that it was not his duty to provide security to Bhutto.

"The United Nations' report on Benazir's killing is baseless," Musharraf said.

In 2010, an independent United Nations inquiry had claimed that security arrangements by Pakistan's federal and local authorities to protect Bhutto were "fatally insufficient and ineffective" and subsequent investigations into her death were prejudiced and involved a whitewash.

The UN Commission of Inquiry, appointed in 2009 by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the request of the Pakistani Government, reached no conclusion about who exactly were the organizers and sponsors behind the attack in which a 15-year-old suicide bomber blew up Bhutto's vehicle in the city of Rawalpindi on 27 December 2007. (ANI)