Bhutto buried as violence spreads
Updated: 2007-12-29 07:36
NAUDERO, Pakistan: Benazir Bhutto was buried on Friday in her family mausoleum after the opposition leader's assassination plunged Pakistan into crisis and triggered violent protests across her native Sindh province.
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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 white, domed mausoleum.
Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, accompanied the closed coffin draped with the green, red and black tricolor of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party on the funeral procession to the mausoleum.
In Sindh, where Bhutto had massive popular support, particularly among the rural poor, at least 16 people, including three policemen, were killed in protests after her death.
"We're anticipating the situation might get worse after the funeral," Sindh Interior Minister Akhtar Zaman said.
Bhutto's death stoked fears that a January 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 timing for now.
"Elections stand as they were announced," 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.
In Sindh, authorities issued an order to shoot violent protesters on sight. Hundreds of cars, trucks and buses smoldered in the interior of the province and crowds of men set up roadblocks.
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