Thousands to attend prayer service for Bhutto

ISLAMABAD: Thousands of grieving Pakistanis are headed to assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's home town Larkana in Sindh province for her funeral prayers on Friday, party officials said.

A sea of humanity, including a large body of her Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) workers and supporters, is expected to attend the event at 2:00 pm, aides to the veteran politician said.

"Her funeral prayers will be held at 2:00 p.m.," PPP information secretary Sherry Rehman told.

Bhutto, 54, was killed on Thursday evening minutes after she addressed a campaign rally at Liaqat Bagh in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, near here.

Her body was flown into Larkana after midnight Thursday in a C-130 plane provided by the government.

Family maids bathed her body early on Friday and wrapped it in a white cloth according to Islamic traditions. A paternal aunt of the slain politician oversaw the ritual.

It was then covered with a black cloth embroidered with Quranic verses in gold and silver and sprayed with flower extracts.

At around 8.30 am the body was shifted to the Bhutto House at Nowdera and placed on a wooden cot with 18-inches wooden grill on its edges to allow women to see her face and pay homage. Most women broke down.

The PPP had earlier decided to hold the prayer service after the funeral at noon. But the funeral itself was postponed to give people more time to reach the venue.

The prayers will now be offered after the weekly Juma prayers, Rehman said.

Bhutto will be buried on the right side of her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's grave at the family's ancestral graveyard at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh on the outskirts of Larkana town.

Her two brothers - Shahnawaz and Murtaza - are also buried in the same graveyard. Bhutto is the fourth member of the family to die an unnatural death.

Bhutto's husband Asif Zardari and three children, who live in Dubai, have reached Pakistan. Her ailing mother Nusrat, who suffers from dementia, has not been told about the assassination.

Zardari and the children, Bilawal, Bakhtawar and Assefa, flew into Islamabad from the United Arab Emirates, PPP leader Safdar Soomro told.

Bhutto's younger sister Sanam, who lives in London, is also flying to Pakistan.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who for years was a foe of Bhutto, his colleagues as well as leaders from other political parties is also scheduled to attend the prayer service.

Soomro said they had received messages that many world leaders were planning to travel to Pakistan to witness the burial.

The Pakistan government, which has declared three-day mourning, provided an American C-130 plane to the PPP to fly Bhutto's body to Larkana from Rawalpindi.