Land of the damned

Charismatic leader's death has left her country in flames, the region under threat and the world in danger. By Raymond Whitaker, Saeed Shah in Larkana and Omar Waraich in Karachi

Election in jeopardy as search starts for Benazir's heir

In a dramatic development that shows the depth of the crisis in Pakistan over the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the government yesterday called for her body to be exhumed to settle the question of how she died.

The charismatic political leader was buried in a sealed coffin on Friday, less than 24 hours after she died in an attack by a suicide bomber at a rally in Rawalpindi. The caretaker Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mohammad Mian Soomro, told the cabinet that Ms Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, had insisted on no autopsy, a statement he has not contested. But conflicting accounts of how she died, and disputes over who bore responsibility, have fuelled rioting which by yesterday had claimed more than 40 lives and caused tens of millions of dollars of damage.

Suspicions over the complicity of Pervez Musharraf's government in the killing were fuelled by its failure to order a post-mortem, regardless of Mr Zardari's wishes, and the fact that the scene of the bombing was washed down with a high-pressure hose within an hour, removing potential forensic evidence. Under the criminal law of Pakistan, an autopsy should have been mandatory, according to a leading lawyer, Athar Minallah. "It is absurd because without autopsy it is not possible to investigate," he said. "Is the state not interested in reaching the perpetrators of this heinous crime, or was there a cover-up?"

Yesterday an Interior Ministry spokesman said an offer had been made to Ms Bhutto's family and her Pakistan People's Party (PPP) to exhume her remains for scientific examination. There was no immediate response. But in her ancestral village of Naudero in rural Sindh province, where she was buried beside her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and where her husband was receiving a stream of mourners offering condolences - among them his wife's former bitter political rival, Nawaz Sharif - supporters continued to accuse the government of responsibility for her death.

Ms Bhutto had claimed, in a secret email to David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, that three senior allies of President Musharraf planned to kill her, it was alleged last night. The message, written weeks before her death, allegedly named an intelligence officer who was officially responsible for protecting her from assassination. The Mail on Sunday also said Ms Bhutto named a longstanding opponent and a prominent Pakistani figure, one of whose family members was thought to have been murdered by a militant group run by her brother.

Ms Bhutto died as she was leaving the rally on Thursday evening. The car in which she was travelling was bullet- and blast-proof, but she had stood up through the open roof to wave to supporters when the attackers approached. Two or three shots were heard seconds before the explosion.

Doctors at the hospital where she was taken initially said she had been shot twice, but some of them later said the cause of death was shrapnel from the explosion. On Friday, however, the Interior Ministry said Ms Bhutto had suffered no bullet or serious shrapnel wounds, and the car's other occupants had been unharmed by the bomb explosion, which killed at least 20 other people. Instead, a new explanation was put forward: the charismatic political leader had fractured her skull as the blast from the bomb slammed her into the handle which opened the car's roof.

The claim that her death was accidental, and the announcement that intercepted phone calls showed al-Qa'ida carried out the bombing, were seen by her supporters as an attempt by the government to deny any blame for her killing. "To hear that Ms Bhutto fell from an impact from a bump on a sunroof is absolute rubbish," Sherry Rehman, a PPP spokeswoman who was with her at the time, said yesterday. "There was a clear bullet wound at the back of the neck. It went in one direction and came out another ... My entire car is coated with her blood, my clothes, everybody - so she did not concuss her head against the sunroof."

Babar Awan, a senior party official, said the sunroof claim was "false". He had seen her body and there were at least two bullet marks, one in the neck and one on the top of the head. "It was a targeted, planned killing. The firing was from more than one side," said Mr Awan.

Although the violence in the wake of the killing is fairly sporadic by Pakistani standards, the country has been paralysed during the three days of mourning declared for Ms Bhutto, ending tomorrow. The government said 176 banks, 72 train carriages and 18 stations had been destroyed, and petrol stations across the country were closed for fear of attack, creating long queues of cars at the few that remained open. Many flights were cancelled, leaving passengers stranded.

With shops shuttered in many parts of Pakistan, there were fears of food shortages. In Karachi, scene of some of the worst outbreaks, police were authorised to open fire on rioters if they were attacked, and three people were killed in a clash yesterday as food stores were looted. "There was bound to be a reaction to such a tragedy," said Farhat Hayat, a senior Karachi police officer. "Hopefully the situation will calm down over the coming days. We are monitoring things very closely."