Pakistan Reels as Benazir Buried

Islamabad, Dec 28 (BDPREM) – Benazir Bhutto was laid to rest next to her father in the family mausoleum on Friday after the opposition leader's assassination plunged Pakistan into crisis and triggered violent protests across her native Sindh province. Tens of thousands of mourners wept and beat their heads as Bhutto, killed by a suicide attacker at an election rally on Thursday, was carried from her ancestral home in Sindh, in the south of the country, to the domed mausoleum. Benazir, who had hoped to regain power in a January election, was slain at a campaign rally Thursday, triggering a wave of violence, especially in her native Sindh province where at least 16 people, including three policemen, were killed. It has stoked fears that a Jan 8 election meant to return Pakistan to civilian rule could be put off, although caretaker Prime Minister Mohammadmian Soomro said there was no change in the schedule for now. World leaders urged nuclear-armed Pakistan not to be deflected from a course toward democracy, as fears spread of instability in a region racked by Islamist militancy. Sixteen people, including three policemen, have been killed in violent protests in Sindh since Benazir's assassination, Sindh Interior Minister Akhtar Zaman said. "We're anticipating the situation might get worse after the funeral," he told Reuters. Many of Benazir's supporters blamed Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf for her death, along with the United States which has backed the former army general, dismissing speculation that she had been killed by Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda. "No matter how many Bhuttos you will kill, a Bhutto will emerge from each house," was heard from the throng lining the road and standing on rooftops during her funeral procession. Authorities issued an order to shoot violent protesters on sight. Hundreds of cars, trucks and buses smouldered in the interior of Sindh and crowds of men set up road blocks and chanted slogans against Musharraf. Meanwhile, a blast at an election meeting in the Swat valley in Pakistan's troubled northwest killed six people including a candidate for the party that supports Musharraf, police said. SHOT IN HEAD AND NECK Benazir, 54, returned home from eight years of self-imposed exile in October, hoping her huge following among the poor would propel her to power for the third time in a vote intended to stabilise a country struggling to contain Islamist violence. But as she left the campaign rally in Rawalpindi, where she spoke of threats to her life, she stood to wave to supporters from the sun-roof of her bullet-proof car. An attacker shot at her before blowing himself up, police and witnesses said. She was killed by bullets to the head and neck. "The shooter was either very well trained or he was very close so he could hit her in the temple and neck," a security official said. She was pronounced dead in hospital in Rawalpindi, home of the Pakistan army and the city where her father, former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Benazir, was hanged in 1979 after being deposed by a military coup. She will be buried alongside him. Musharraf condemned the attack on Benazir, in which a total of 16 people were killed, and called for calm. "We will not sit and rest until we get rid of these terrorists," he said. Benazir had spoken out strongly against Islamist violence and had been threatened by pro-Taliban militants. The United States, which relies on Pakistan as an ally against al Qaeda and the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan, had championed the Harvard- and Oxford-educated Benazir, seeing in her the best hope of a return to democracy. "The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy," President George W Bush said. He called Musharraf and urged Pakistanis to honour Benazir's memory by holding elections as scheduled. "ELECTIONS STAND" "Elections stand as they were announced," Prime Minister Soomro told reporters. But analysts said the assassination, which followed a wave of suicide attacks and the worsening of an Islamist insurgency, could make this impossible. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Benazir's old political rival, said his party would boycott the January election. He blamed Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 military coup but retired from the army last month, for the instability. Musharraf imposed a state of emergency in November in what was seen as an attempt to stop the judiciary from vetoing his re-election as president. He lifted emergency rule this month. MOURNING THE LOSS Mourners wept and beat their heads as Benazir's body was carried out of her ancestral home in the southern Sindh province at the start of the funeral procession. In 1988, aged just 35, Benazir became the Muslim world's first democratically elected woman prime minister. Deposed in 1990, she was re-elected in 1993, and ousted again in 1996 amid charges of corruption she said were politically motivated. Benazir, who escaped unhurt from a suicide attack in October, is survived by her husband and a son Bilawal, 19, and two daughters, Bakhtawar, 17 and Aseefa, 14. Her husband said the government should step down. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, accompanied the closed coffin draped with the green, red and black tricolour of her Pakistan People's Party as it began the 7-km (4-mile) journey by ambulance to the white, domed family mausoleum. "Show patience. Give us courage to bear this loss," Zardari earlier told the crowds after arriving in Sindh with his wife's body, accompanied by their three teenage children. Authorities ordered the central bank and all schools across Pakistan to close for three days of mourning. "UNCHARTED WATERS" Analysts say Pakistan, a key US ally in the battle against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, is entering "uncharted waters", which could lead to instability in a region that has seen three wars fought between Pakistan and its nuclear-armed neighbour India. "This is not the first crisis Pakistan has faced since its inception in 1947, but I would be inclined to say that it is the worst convergence of crises we have seen," said Farzana Shaikh, an expert on Pakistan and an associate fellow at the Chatham House analysis group in London. While Islamic hardliners, including members of the Taliban and al Qaeda, both of which operate in Pakistan, have been named as possible perpetrators of the attack, analysts said Bhutto's political opponents and those close to Musharraf's political party could not be ruled out of suspicion.