RAWALPINDI, Dec 26: The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) is all set to hold a public rally in Liaquat Bagh in connection with the fourth death anniversary of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto on Tuesday.

The participants of the rally will pay tributes to the slain chairperson of the PPP who was killed on December 27, 2007, after attending a public rally at the historic park formerly known as Company Bagh. The park is named after the country's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, who was also assassinated there on October 16, 1951.

Though two of Pakistan's prominent political leaders were killed at the venue, no sign or symbol has been constructed in the spacious park to pay tributes to them except a temporary portrait of Ms Bhutto that too has been placed not exactly on the spot where she was killed. Despite making promises, the federal government has also failed to build a monument at the place where Ms Bhutto was killed.

Former political secretary to Ms Bhutto, Naheed Khan, who has been at odd with her ruling PPP leadership for failing to expose her killers, told Dawn that she had lost hopes that the killers of Ms Bhutto would by brought to justice by a government that could even not build a monument in her honour.

“I am in Larkana to pay homage to my great leader on her fourth death anniversary. Here in Garhi Khuda Bux, I can at least see her grave which I cannot in Rawalpindi's Liaquat Bagh,” Ms Khan told this reporter on phone on Monday.

Similarly, at the site of the then district jail of Rawalpindi, where PPP's founder and former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto spent his last days, now stands the military-controlled Jinnah Public Park with the place where he was hanged on April 4, 1979, buried under a fountain.

“It is really sad that we have not preserved even a single spot where the three prime former prime ministers breathed their last. The chair, sofa, table lamp and table used by Mr Bhutto at the then district jail are now missing,” PPP activist Malik Mazhar Hussain said while talking to Dawn.

Some PPP leaders accuse the Punjab government of creating hurdles in the construction of a monument at Liaquat Bagh in memory of Ms Bhutto, saying the PML-N leadership did not want to give PPP a boost in the district.

“Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had announced three years back that the federal government would construct a monument in honour of Ms Bhutto at Liaquat Bagh but the Punjab government has been creating hurdle in the project,” said former union council nazim and PPP leader Nasir Mir.

Recently, the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) constructed 'Bab-i-Azadi' (freedom wall) outside Liaquat Bagh at a cost of Rs1.8 million having portraits of Pakistan's founder Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and national poet Allama Iqbal.

But many PPP leaders blame the federal government for not showing any interest in the construction of Benazir monument neither in Rawalpindi nor in Islamabad.

“The federal government is clearly responsible for dilly-dallying on initiating work on the Benazir monument even four years after coming to power. The government should and immediately start work on the project to preserve the spot where Ms Bhutto was assassinated,” PPP Senator Safdar Abbasi told this reporter.He regretted that though top party leaders, diplomats and PPP workers continued visiting the place there were still no drinking water or seating arrangements. “I fear that sooner or later nobody will even identify the spot where Ms Bhutto was assassinated,” he added.