Abe, 67, was fatally shot from behind minutes into his speech in Nara on Friday. He was flown by helicopter to a hospital for treatment. He received emergency care but was later pronounced dead. Police detained the alleged gunman at the scene of the attack, which frightened many people in Japan.
The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, expressed sympathy for Abe’s passing and declared one-day national mourning with the utmost respect.
The killing of multiple heads of state and senior officials worldwide, including two from India, has once again come into the news following this deadly shooting. Here is the list of 8 heads of state who were assassinated in the past.
Abraham Lincoln:
At Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, an American stage actor, fatally shot Abraham Lincoln, the 16th US president who guided the country through the American Civil War. The theatre has been kept as a historical landmark.
John F. Kennedy:
John F. Kennedy, also known as JFK, served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Former US Marine Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the murder and assassinated by Jack Ruby two days later.
Indira Gandhi:
India was in mourning after the 1984 assassination of the then-prime minister Indira Gandhi by two of her security guards. Indira Gandhi, known as the “Iron Lady,” was assassinated by her security personnel on the morning of October 31, 1984, immediately after leaving her official house at 1 Safdarjung Road in Delhi. The building is presently used as a memorial. The first female prime minister of India passed away there after being transported to AIIMS.
Rajiv Gandhi:
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Rajiv Gandhi, Indira Gandhi’s son who succeeded his mother as Prime Minister after her death and held the position until 1989, was killed by a female suicide bomber on the evening of May 21, 1991, at an electoral rally in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu.
Liaquat Ali Khan:
Liaquat Ali Khan, born in undivided India’s Karnal, served as Pakistan’s first prime minister from 1947 to 1951. On October 16, 1951, he was assassinated while giving a speech at Rawalpindi’s Company Bagh. Later, Liaqat Bagh was added to the garden’s name in his honour Sheikh Mujibur Rahman: On August 15, 1975, in Dhaka, Bangladesh—which India helped liberate—its beloved Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated. Rahman, Bangladesh’s first president and prime minister from April 1971 until his assassination, was assassinated along with the majority of his family.
Benazir Bhutto:
In 2007, a different Pakistani leader was killed in Rawalpindi. On December 27, 2007, the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Rawalpindi shortly after speaking at an electoral rally. After a rally in Liaquat Bagh, she was attacked and taken to the hospital, where she was later declared dead. The Rawalpindi Central Hospital, where she passed away, was renamed after Benazir Bhutto after her murder, according to a 2014 report in Dawn.
King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev:
The assassination of Nepal’s royals shocked both the country and the entire world. On June 1, 2001, his son shot and killed King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev and several royal family members. Following his father’s death on January 31, 1972, King Birendra ascended to the throne and ruled Nepal for three decades, first as an absolute monarch and then as a constitutional monarch beginning in 1990. He played very instrumental role in founding the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.