KARACHI, Jan 29 Paying tribute to slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, speakers at a memorial reference have observed that Ms Bhutto had a fair idea that what would happen to her but she returned here only for the sake of her country and sacrificed her life in the struggle for the people of Pakistan.

The speakers unanimously held that Ms Bhutto was the only leader who gave hope to the poor for a better tomorrow and paid the price for democracy.

The memorial reference was organised by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) in a local hotel on Tuesday. The programme was attended by a large number of people, including diplomats.

Speaking on the occasion, PPP deputy secretary-general Raza Rabbani said the tragic incident of Dec 27 not only shook the world but also took away what he described as the linchpin of Pakistan's federation.

Rejecting a government-sponsored inquiry into the assassination of Ms Bhutto, Mr Rabbani said that only history would tell why she was assassinated. “Was she assassinated to destabilise Pakistan or to stop the march of democracy, or was it something to change the geography of Pakistan...only history will give answers to these questions.”

He said Ms Bhutto died among poor, oppressed people of Pakistan and in the arms of her political workers who, after her assassination, asked who would now raise a voice for their rights.

Mr Rabbani said Ms Bhutto had a dream and she wanted to see Pakistan under a true parliamentary system, where the judiciary and the media were free, and economic growth benefited the elite only.

“She was perhaps aware of it before her last journey but she followed in the footsteps of her Shaheed father. She paid the price for her struggle for democracy,” he said.

The secretary-general of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Iqbal Haider, said Pakistan needed Ms Bhutto very badly because the country was threatened both from within as well as from outside. “She was the only hope for the integrity of Pakistan and the elimination of extremism, and was the only hope for building a real modern and enlightened society.”

He said that the real assassins of Ms Bhutto were the ones she had named in an email message to Mark Siegel.

PPP information secretary Sherry Rehman said that Ms Bhutto's power base were the people of Pakistan and she could invoke the kind of passions in the street no other politician, except her father, could. “The problem for her enemies is that by eliminating her they have made her bigger and more relevant than she was in her life.”

“Ms Bhutto stood for an element critical to her times. She was the only leader who saw that if we don't step in the way, the fires of extremism will engulf Pakistan. She was the only leader who owned the battle against religious orthodoxy and militancy as Pakistan's internal challenge,” she added.

Ali Dayan Hasan of the Human Rights Watch, senior journalists Shamim-ur-Rahman, Najam Sethi, Mahmood Sham, and Justice (retd) Majida Rizvi also spoke.

At the end of the programme, a three-minute short documentary titled 'Mein beti hoon Zulfikar ki' (I am the daughter of Zulfikar) was screened.