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Begum Nusrat Bhutto (; ; ; ; 23 March 1929 – 23 October 2011) was an Iranian-born Pakistani public figure who served as the First Lady of Pakistan from 1971 to 1977, as the wife of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who served as the President and Prime Minister of Pakistan. She also served as a senior member of the federal cabinet between 1988 and 1990, under her daughter Benazir Bhutto's government.
She was born in Isfahan to a wealthy merchant family of Kurds heritage and her family had settled in Bombay before moving to Karachi after the Partition of British India. Ispahani joined a paramilitary women's force in 1950, but left a year later when she married Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. She moved to Oxfordshire with her husband who then was pursuing his legal education. She returned to Pakistan alongside Bhutto who went on to serve as the Foreign Minister. After her husband founded the Pakistan Peoples Party, Ispahani worked to lead the party's women's wing. After Bhutto was elected as the Prime Minister in 1971, Ispahani became the First Lady of Pakistan and remained so until her husband's removal in 1977. Her daughter, Benazir Bhutto immediately succeeded her husband as the leader of the Pakistan Peoples party. While under house arrest, Ispahani fought an unsuccessful legal battle to prevent her husband's execution. After Bhutto's execution, Ispahani, along with her children, went into Self Exile to London, from where in 1981 she co-founded the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy, a non-violent opposition to Zia ul-Haq's regime.
Ispahani returned to Pakistan after her daughter Benazir made a comeback in 1986. After the People's Party's victory in 1988, she joined Benazir's cabinet as a minister without portfolio while representing Larkana District in the National Assembly. She remained in the cabinet until Benazir's government was dismissed in 1990. Afterwards, during a family dispute between her son, Murtaza Bhutto, and her daughter, Benazir, Ispahani favored Murtaza leading Benazir to sack Ispahani as the party leader. Ispahani stopped talking to the media and refrained from political engagements after the assassination of her son Murtaza in 1996 during a police encounter, during her daughter's second government.
Ispahani moved to Dubai in 1996, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, she was kept out of public's eye by Benazir until her demise on 23 October 2011. In Pakistan, Ispahani is remembered for her contribution to empowerment of women in Pakistan and for advocating for democracy in Pakistan, for which she is dubbed as (English "Mother of Democracy"), a title she was honored with by the parliament following her death.
Before emigrating to Pakistan, Nusrat attended the University of Karachi where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Humanities in 1950.
After returning to Pakistan in the late 1980s, she served two terms as a Member of Parliament to the National Assembly from the family constituency of Larkana District. During the administrations of her daughter Benazir, she became a cabinet minister and Senior Federal Minister. In the 1990s, she and Benazir became estranged when Nusrat took the side of her son Murtaza Bhutto during a family dispute but were later reconciled after Murtaza's murder. She lived the last few years of her life with her daughter's family in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and later suffered from the combined effects of a stroke and Alzheimer's disease.
Bhutto was suspected of cancer in 1982, and hence, allowed to leave Pakistan for medical treatment. While she continued her political activities from outside the country, she handed over the reigns of the party to her daughter Benazir. Three years later, her youngest son, Shahnawaz was found dead at Cannes. She withdrew from public life particularly after her son Murtaza's death in 1996, which some suggest coincides with her onset of Alzheimer's disease. At the time of her daughter Benazir's assassination, the disease was so advanced that she could not comprehend the killing.
Bhutto used a ventilator during her last days. She died at the age of 82 in the Iranian Hospital Dubai on 23 October 2011. Her son-in-law, then Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, cut short his official trip to Jordan to escort her body from Dubai to Pakistan. Her grandchildren, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari, and Aseefa Bhutto Zardari came in from London. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani announced a public holiday for the next day, as well as a ten-day mourning period. The ruling Pakistan Peoples Party, founded by her husband, announced that it will suspend all political activities for the following 40 days to mourn her death.
Her body was laid to rest at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh in Larkana District the next day. She was buried next to her husband and children in the Bhutto family mausoleum at a ceremony attended by thousands of mourners.
Pakistan International Airlines ran special flights from Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi to Sukkur for those who wanted to attend the funeral.
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