KARACHI - Rioting and political violence following the assassination of former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto has killed 32 people, according to a toll from several officials across the country Friday.
Twenty-three people have died in clashes and protests in Bhutto’s political heartland of southern Sindh province since her killing Thursday, provincial home secretary Ghulam Mohammad Mohtaram said. The army had been deployed in 16 districts of Sindh, including the main city Karachi, he said. Paramilitary forces earlier said they had been given orders to shoot rioters on sight in Karachi. Another eight people died in a bomb blast in North West Frontier Province, including a member of President Pervez Musharraf’s former ruling party, police said. The remote-controlled bomb exploded as the pro-Musharraf candidate left a political rally in a suburb of Mingora, the main town in the troubled Swat Valley, which has been wracked by violence in recent months. A security official said one person had also died in central Punjab province. Rioting broke out in many cities across the country following Bhutto’s death in a gun and suicide bomb attack on Thursday that the government said was most likely carried out by the Al Qaeda network. In Rawalpindi, where Bhutto was killed, protesters burned down a shopping plaza and set tyres ablaze, AFP correspondents on the scene said.
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