Bhutto's body arrives for burial in family graveyard

ISLAMABAD: The body of slain Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto arrived in southern Sindh province before dawn on Friday for burial in the family's graveyard, party officials said.   

The plane landed in Sukkur from where the body and members of her family were flown by helicopter to Naudero, her spokesman Farhatullah Babar told.   

Her husband Asif Zardari, their three children and some senior leaders of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) travelled on the plane.   

Bhutto will be buried in the ancestral graveyard in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh near the grave of her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Babar said.   

Her family members and close relatives will have a last glimpse of the body before funeral prayers scheduled for noon (0830 GMT), he said.   

Security was tight in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh as thousands of her party members and supporters were expected to attend the burial ceremony.   

Caravans of her supporters are expected to arrive from several towns in Sindh, which is considered a PPP stronghold, party officials said.  

The coffin carrying Bhutto was earlier flown in a Pakistani air force C-130 aircraft from Islamabad.    Bhutto was assassinated on Thursday in a gun and bomb attack that killed around 20 people as she left a party rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad.   

Bhutto, a two-time former premier, was spearheading the PPP's campaign for January 8 general elections.