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Pakistan set to issue Benazir Bhutto coin

by Sanjay Jha | December 21, 2008 at 09:52 pm

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One year after her assassination former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is coming to the pockets of her citizens. Her big portraits have been hanging on the government buildings, billboards, supporterss' cars and in the background of her husband and President Asif Ali Zardari.

Pakistan's central bank will issue a special Benazir Bhutto coin in rememberance of her assassination and with this Pakistanis will only have to reach into their pockets to see her face.

Seeing her popularity, the coin for the donomination of ten rupee have been minted in large quntities and will be issued to Pakistani people on the day she was assassinated in a suicide attack last year in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. On one side, the coin bears a portrait of Ms Bhutto, in her trademark headscarf. Inscribed under the image in Urdu is the phrase, "Daughter of the East, the honourable martyr Benazir Bhutto".

The State Bank of Pakistan will issue about 300,000 special 10-rupee (16 US cents) coins.

The coin will read in Urdu, "Daughter of the East, Benazir Bhutto".

Ms Bhutto was killed in a suicide bomb and gun attack in Rawalpindi on 27 December last year after an election rally for her Pakistan People's Party.

The coin will be issued on 27 December, the bank announced.

Ms Bhutto has already had Islamabad's international airport named after her, along with a hospital in Rawalpindi and a key road.

Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, became co-chairman of the Pakistan People's Party, which won February's elections. He took over as Pakistan's president in September.