Pakistanis Mourn at Bhutto's Burial

Tens of thousands of people have attended the funeral of assassinated Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto. Grief-stricken mourners converged on the family mausoleum where she was buried next to her father near their home village in Sindh province. The coffin, draped in the flag of Ms Bhutto's party, was driven in a white ambulance through dense crowds. Pakistani security forces are on high alert, with 19 people killed in violence across the country. President Pervez Musharraf has appealed for calm, following Ms Bhutto's death at an election rally on Thursday, where a gunman opened fire on the former Pakistani prime minister and then blew himself up. The plain wooden coffin was taken from Ms Bhutto's family home to the burial site 7km (four miles) away at the village of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh. Mourners - some weeping and beating their heads and chests - jostled to see the casket, which was accompanied by her husband, Asif Ali Zardari and her three children. As the funeral prayers ended and the casket was moved for burial, loud sobs broke out from the politician's supporters. Outside the three-domed mausoleum, crowds chanted slogans blaming President Pervez Musharraf for Ms Bhutto's death. The BBC's Owen Bennett-Jones, who is in the district of Larkana, says the mood among local people is one of anger, with activists from Ms Bhutto's party unsure who killed their leader. The government said plans for parliamentary elections on 8 January remained unchanged. Caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro said the government would consult other political parties on the issue. Ms Bhutto's political rival Nawaz Sharif, also a former prime minister, announced that his party would boycott the vote in response to the attack. Correspondents say that credible elections will be very difficult to hold with the leader of the largest opposition party dead and Mr Sharif refusing to take part. Supporters' anger Security officials say 19 people have been killed in violence as angry supporters of Ms Bhutto have taken to the streets: * a roadside bomb in the volatile north-western district of Swat killed a candidate from the ruling PML-Q party and at least three others, police said * in Peshawar, the office of a pro-government party was ransacked and set ablaze * a policeman was shot dead and three others wounded in a shootout in an eastern part of Karachi. Several other people died as government offices, police stations and vehicles were torched by rioters * police opened fire on protesters in Sindh's Hyderabad city, after banks, vehicles and businesses were set on fire. * in the city of Multan in Punjab province, a mob ransacked seven banks and torched a petrol station. * at least one passenger train was set ablaze in Sindh province and a number of railway stations were reportedly burnt. Security forces in Sindh have been ordered to shoot rioters on sight. Final speech 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. She was taken to hospital in the northern city, where she was declared dead. Ms Bhutto was twice prime minister of Pakistan, from 1988 to 1990, and from 1993 to 1996. She was sacked on both occasions after being charged with corruption. She became the first democratically elected female prime minister in an Islamic country after Gen Zia ul-Haq, the man who overthrew her father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, died in an explosion on board his aircraft in 1988. Her father was overthrown in a military coup by Gen Zia in 1977 and executed two years later. Ms Bhutto returned from eight years of self-imposed exile in October, following talks with President Musharraf, which led to an amnesty for Ms Bhutto and a number of others charged with corruption. Shortly after her return, she survived bomb attacks on her convoy in the southern city of Karachi that killed more than 130 people. She accused rogue elements of the intelligence services of involvement in the attack. Militants blamed The Asia Times reported that one of their correspondents had been telephoned by the al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, who said the network was behind the attack. But the Pakistani Interior Ministry said it was not aware of any specific claim of responsibility. President Musharraf has blamed Islamic extremists for the attack, a view questioned by opposition politician and former cricketer Imran Khan. "It's all very easy for the government to blame everything on al-Qaeda and the terrorists, yet there could be other stakeholders. "The people who've been in power for five years surely were threatened by Benazir, how do we know they're not responsible?" The authorities say they had warned Ms Bhutto of threats against her, but her supporters say the government did not do enough to protect her