Murtaza Bhutto
Murtaza Bhutto was born on September 18, 1954. See ranking, bio blurb, and everyone else born that day.
About Murtaza Bhutto
Murtaza Bhutto (18 September 1954 – 20 September 1996) was a Pakistani politician and leftist activist who led Al-Zulfiqar, a left-wing militant organization, against Zia-ul-Haq's military regime. He was a member of the Bhutto family as the son of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and a master's degree from the University of Oxford. Murtaza founded al-Zulfiqar after his father was overthrown and executed in 1979 by the military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq. In 1981, he claimed responsibility for the assassination of conservative politician Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi, and the hijacking of a Pakistan International Airlines airplane from Karachi, during which a hostage was killed. In exile in Afghanistan, Murtaza was sentenced to death in absentia by a military tribunal. He returned to Pakistan in 1993 and was arrested for terrorism on the orders of his sister, then-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Released on bail, Murtaza successfully contested elections to the Sindh Provincial Assembly, becoming a vocal critic of Benazir and her husband Asif Ali Zardari. After increasing tensions between the two, he was shot dead along with six associates in a police encounter near his home in Karachi on 20 September 1996. Benazir's government was dismissed a month later by President Farooq Leghari, primarily citing Murtaza's death and corruption. Zardari was arrested and indicted for Murtaza's murder, but acquitted in 2008. Murtaza's own faction of his father's Pakistan People's Party–Shaheed Bhutto, remains active in politics.