The 44th death anniversary of former Prime Minister and founder of the PPP Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is being observed today (Tuesday).

Special programmes and prayers will take place in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh – where he was laid to rest.

Due to the holy month of Ramazan, a public meeting in his honour will be held outside the mausoleum in the evening, where the PPP chairman and other party leaders will address the participants.

Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in a tribute message said the former prime minister laid the foundation of a new era in Pakistan’s political arena.

Who was Bhutto?

Bhutto was born on January 05, 1928, in Larkana. He received education at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Oxford, and was trained as a barrister at Lincoln s Inn.

On September 08, 1951, he married a woman of Iranian Kurdish origin— Nusrat Ispahani, popularly known as Begum Nusrat Bhutto. They had four children – Benazir Bhutto, Sanam Bhutto, Murtaza Bhutto, and Shahnawaz Bhutto.

He entered politics as one of President Iskander Mirza’s cabinet members, before being assigned to several ministries during President Ayub Khan’s military rule.

Bhutto founded the PPP in 1967 and served as the President of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973. He took oath as the ninth prime minister of Pakistan on August 14, 1973, after parliament unanimously approved a new constitution in the same year.

On July 05, 1977, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Zia-ul-Haq deposed Bhutto in a bloodless coup and had the former prime minister controversially tried and executed by the Supreme Court in 1979 for authorising the murder of a political opponent, Ahmad Raza Khan Kasuri.