New York: Leading American experts in forensic pathology have deplored the "failure" of Pakistani officials to order an autopsy on the body of former premier Benazir Bhutto and at least two of them have suggested that she could have died of bullet wounds.

Their opinion, published in the New York Times, was given after its reporter read out the medical report of Bhutto to them.

Dr Michael M Baden, who is a top forensic official for the New York State Police as well as a former New York City chief medical examiner, said he suspected that Bhutto died from a bullet wound that left two or three tiny fragment seen on X-ray before it exited the skull through a wound that the Pakistani doctors did not notice in part because they apparently did not shave the bloodied thick skull hair.

Baden's opinion assumes importance as he was chairman of the forensic pathology panel of the House of Representatives select committees on the assassinations of former American President John F Kennedy and the Rev Dr Martin Luther King.

Dr Werner U Spitz, former chief medical examiner in Detroit, told the Times that he suspected that Bhutto died after being hit by a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle.

They observed that conducting autopsy is the standard medical procedure and is a crucial part of any credible investigation of a murder. They also suggested that exhuming the body of Bhutto, 54, who was killed Thursday at a political rally, could still be extremely useful in determining more precisely whether she was shot, hit by shrapnel from a suicide bomb or, "less likely," died from striking her head against an object in the vehicle in which she was riding.

Source : PTI