Local Pakistanis React to Bhutto Assassination

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By Sze Chun Chan
SBU J-School Reporter

A TV blares in the background. The tables are clean and neat. A string of yellow taxis lines the curb outside. Tending to steaming trays of chicken tikka masala, channa daal, meat curry and other Pakistani and Indian delicacies, Mohammad Sial watches the first group of customers walk into his restaurant for the day’s luncheon buffet.

As the customers chatter loudly at the door, Sial seats them and brings over a pitcher of water. This is a popular place on Murray Hill to grab a quick and inexpensive lunch. But for Sial, a Pakistan native, it is another day of running his restaurant, Haandi, while at the same time worrying about the turmoil that has gripped his home country since the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, in December.

“I don’t feel good about it here,” Sial said as he leaned over the counter, pausing for a minute to discuss a serious issue. “I have family here, my two daughters and a good business here, but I’m worried about my country.”

Sial looks forward to the elections in Pakistan, which were postponed until February in the wake of the assassination, as a beacon of hope for his country. He maintains a connection to Pakistan by going back once a year for business reasons and to visit the rest of his family. He acknowledges that Pakistan is often a perilous place to travel.

“Nobody knows when anybody would come and go boom,” he said as a customer grabbed a handful from a bowl of licorice candies. “This time is very bad.”

Bhutto, who was shot and killed Dec. 27 as she left an election rally, was the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state. She served twice as the prime minister of Pakistan. She was also one of the youngest state leaders, taking power in 1988 when she was just 35.

After her death, riots broke out across the country, with angry supporters burning cars, destroying property and throwing rocks. President Pervez Musharraf declared a three-day period of mourning across the country and postponed elections, originally scheduled for Jan. 8, to the next month.

The violence in Pakistan is not new. The most recent round has been going on since the Pakistani army clashed with rebel tribesmen and militants in 2004. The army, backed by the United States, was searching for the Taliban and its supporters in the mountainous regions of the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier. Local tribes viewed the army’s actions as an attempt to subjugate them, and fighting ignited. With Bhutto’s death, a wave of violence and rioting in many cities,along with the war in the north, has destabilized the country.

Sial recognizes many of the enemies that Pakistan has, like its biggest rival, India, and the terrorist groups that have found refuge in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal areas.

“Anybody doing wrong is no good,” Sial said with intensity. “Many people say it’s Al Qaeda, but I don’t know who it is.”

A departing customer came over to pay his bill and exchange a few friendly words with Sial in Urdu, the official language of Pakistan. Sial is running the business from the counter of the downstairs buffet today. The top floor of the restaurant is often a quick stop for cab drivers. The bottom floor features a lunch buffet for $8.99 and a wide-screen television tuned to the Discovery Channel for those who have a bit of time to eat, sit, and catch a TV program or two.

Around 9 p.m., Sial said, many cab drivers whom come from all over Pakistan share a meal, watch the popular Pakistani news channel GEO, and discuss news and politics from home.

That night, a Pakistani storeowner from New Jersey stops by to eat dinner as other Pakistanis gather.

Javed Jovndah flips through an issue of the Pakistan Post, a free New York City newspaper in Urdu. He seems forgiving that his channa daal and rice have not yet arrived. It’s a calm Manhattan night on the avenue outside of Haandi. Around him, off-duty taxi drivers sit with eyes fixed upwards to the two screens broadcasting GEO TV. Rolling credits conclude an Indian drama. The nightly news comes on with an anchor sitting beside a portrait of Benazir Bhutto, who is again in the headlines.

Jovndah had been taking a few days rest from work in Newark, where he owns a store. Still waiting for his food, he turns to give the waiter an expectant look. The waiter returns a quick, reassuring nod and disappears behind the counter.

“She was the most popular amongst the Pakistani people,” Jovndah, a Pakistani-American, says. “She was a symbol of hope to our people.”

In the months leading to the elections originally planned for January, there were bombings across major metropolitan areas in Pakistan. A bombing in Karachi on Oct. 18 targeting Bhutto killed at least 136 people and wounded 387. Bhutto escaped unscathed at that time. Al Qaeda or the Taliban are suspected.

“It’s quiet in Punjab and the small areas, but the big cities are targeted,” Jovndah said, digging into his lentil dish, which had finally arrived. “Musharraf is on the side of the U.S. He is very much against the terrorists, and he tries his best.”

Al Qaeda wanted revenge against Pakistan for helping America, he said.

In mid-January, a pro-Taliban militant group numbering in the hundreds attacked a Pakistan Army fort in South Waziristan, one of the tribal areas. The 42 soldiers in the fort held out for a few hours before the militants broke through. Seven Pakistani soldiers were killed in the attack; 15 were still missing. The soldiers have since abandoned the fort.

Jovndah is pessimistic about the upcoming elections.

“In this area of Pakistan, there are no fair and free elections,” he said. “Elections won’t change much.”

Then he offered his listener a piece of his flatbread.

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