Pak security officers search for killers of Benazir

: Police searched for clues Friday to identify the assassin of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto while her supporters ransacked banks and burned train stations in furious rampages across Pakistan less than two weeks before a crucial election.

The death of President Pervez Musharraf's most powerful political opponent in a shooting and bombing attack plunged the nation into turmoil and threatened its already unsteady role as a vital bulwark against Islamic terror.

Angry Bhutto supporters ran amok through the streets after her assassination, lighting cars and stores on fire in violence that killed at least 10 people. The attack on Ms Bhutto _ which also killed 20 other people _ and its aftermath badly damaged plans to restore democracy in this nuclear-armed U.S. ally.

Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro said Friday that the government had no immediate plan to postpone Jan. 8 parliamentary elections, despite the growing chaos and a top opposition leader's decision to boycott the poll.

``Right now the elections stand where they were,'' he told a news conference. ``We will consult all the political parties to take any decision about it.''

Ms Bhutto was to be buried Friday afternoon in the family's ancestral village of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, next to the grave of her father, also a popular opposition political leader who met a violent death, said Nazir Dhoki, a spokesman for Ms Bhutto's party.

Ms Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, and her three children arrived from Dubai to attend the funeral, Dhoki said, sobbing with grief during a telephone interview.

Violence intensified in some cities Friday. A mob in Karachi looted three banks and set them on fire, police said.

About 7,000 people in the central city of Multan ransacked seven banks and a gas station and threw stones at police, who responded with tear gas. In the capital,

Courtesy:thehindu.com
Complete artical HERE