|
Pakistani security forces are on high alert as mourners prepare to bury former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was killed at a rally on Thursday. Her body has been flown to her home in Sindh, where security forces have been ordered to shoot rioters on sight. President Pervez Musharraf has appealed for calm, but angry Bhutto supporters have rioted in several cities. At least 11 deaths were reported. Supporters' anger Overnight rioting left four dead and dozens injured in Karachi in Sindh province, police said. In the latest incident, a policeman was shot dead by gunmen in an eastern part of the city. Businesses, government offices and police stations, along with dozens of vehicles, were attacked and set alight. Rioters also blocked several roads and set fire to tyres. In Peshawar, the office of a party supporting President Pervez Musharraf was ransacked and set ablaze. Final speech Thousands of mourners have converged at Ms Bhutto's ancestral family home in Ghari Khuda Baksh, near Larkana, where she will be buried after Friday prayers. Ms Bhutto, 54, was leaving an election rally in Rawalpindi, standing in the open sunroof of a car, when a gunman shot her in the neck and chest. Seconds later, the attacker blew himself up, killing at least 20 people. Ms Bhutto was taken to hospital in the northern city, where she was declared dead. Supporters of her Pakistan People's Party (PPP) later carried her simple wooden coffin to a waiting ambulance, which took it to Rawalpindi's military airport. It was accompanied on board a military aircraft by Ms Bhutto's husband Asif Zardari and their three children, who had earlier flown to the capital, Islamabad, from Dubai. Ms Bhutto will be buried next to her father, former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was overthrown in a military coup by Gen Zia ul-Haq in 1977 and executed two years later.
|