Dubai: Begum Nusrat Bhutto, widow of former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and mother of ex prime minister Benazir Bhutto, passed away in Dubai after protracted illness. 

Ms  Bhutto, who was also mother-in-law of Pakistan’s incumbent president Asif Ali Zardari, had been in coma for many years at a private hospital  in Dubai.

Her body would be brought by a special plane to Larkana from Dubai Sunday evening for burial in Garhi Khuda Bux, the ancestral graveyard of the Bhuttos where Zulfiqar and Benazir are buried.

Besides being ex-first lady, Ms Bhutto, an Iranian-origin Pakistani, had been a federal minister and chairperson of Pakistan People’s Party after Bhutto’s execution. Begum Bhutto remained unaware of Benazir’s death on December 27, 2007.

She was born on March 23, 1929, in Esfahan, Iran. She came from the wealthy Hariri Esfahani family. She was of Kurdish descent, but some people claim that the Kurdish connection only comes from her grandmother who had married into the Hariri family.

Her father was a wealthy Iranian businessman who settled in Karachi. She met Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Karachi. They got married on September 8, 1951. She was his second wife. They had four children together, three of whom–Shahnawaz, Murtaza and Benazir–she outlived.

President Asif Ali Zardari after getting the news of his mother-in-law’s death flew to Dubai from Jordan by cutting short his visit.