Pak President urged to move to bunkers during Op Sindoor, Asif Ali Zardari admits

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has revealed that he was advised to “hide in a bunker” when India launched Operation Sindoor in May this year.

Mr. Zardari made the revelation while speaking at an event in Larkana, Sindh province, to mark the 18th death anniversary of his wife and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in a gun and bomb attack in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007.

“My MS (Military Secretary) came to me and said, ‘Sir, the war has started. I had actually told him four days earlier that a war was going to happen.’ He said, ‘Sir, let's go to a bunker (being a safe place)’... I said, ‘If martyrdom is to come, it will come here. Leaders don't die in bunkers. They die on the battlefield. They don't die sitting in bunkers,’” he said on Saturday (December 27, 2025).