STRANGE are the ways of politics in Pakistan sometimes: a PPP provincial government in Sindh appeals to a PPP-led federal government to make public the report into the death of the leader of the PPP. Stranger yet, the federal government sends its interior minister to the Sindh Assembly to give a rambling and disjointed briefing that ends with the chief minister and speaker appreciating a self-indulgent presentation and declaring that since the trial of the seven suspected of involvement in Benazir Bhutto’s assassination has yet to be completed, little more can be said at this point in time.

But what the PPP won’t say, others can. It appears that stung by the criticism of Sindhi nationalist leaders that their party has not been able to identify or punish the killers of Ms Bhutto, PPP politicians in Sindh decided to show that they had not in fact forgotten about the matter of who murdered their iconic leader. With elections coming up in the next year or so, the PPP has to protect its flanks from the potent criticism of opponents on its home turf in Sindh. Hence the political stunt — and that’s what it really amounts to — in the Sindh Assembly yesterday where the party tried to show its great concern for what has become of th investigation into Ms Bhutto’s assassination.

To be sure, the death of Ms Bhutto was a personal as well as a political tragedy for the PPP leaders. Her loss was and is felt greatly by the party. Equally, the party does genuinely fear that pursuing the matter of Ms Bhutto’s death too aggressively could imperil the PPP’s future, or even the present. There is enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that the PPP’s fear of the nexus between militancy and shadowy elements of the state is fairly legitimate. That said, for a government that is about to begin an unprecedented fifth year of its term, that has seen off all manner of challenges to its rule and that has navigated a tricky political terrain with dexterity, taking up the investigation into the assassination of Ms Bhutto with seriousness of purpose ought to be something that can and should be attempted. Pakistan has for too long buried its leaders without knowing who killed them and why. To exorcise the ghosts of that bitter past, the truth has to come out. The PPP, having suffered heavily, has enough of an incentive to establish the truth. But playing politics with the death of Benazir Bhutto is a disservice to her memory.