Tears for Bhutto mingle with anger against Musharraf

By Faisal Aziz

NAUDERO, Pakistan (Reuters) - Sounds of grief filled the dusty air of a southern Pakistani village on Friday as more than 100,000 people attended the funeral of slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, wept as he accompanied the closed coffin on the 7-km (4-mile) journey to the family mausoleum at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, a village set among paddy fields in the southern province of Sindh.

The two-time premier was gunned down by an assassin who then blew himself up in an attack that killed a total of 16 people at the end of an election campaign rally in Rawalpindi on Thursday.

Zardari appealed to the crowd massed outside the family home to give pall bearers room to slide the casket, draped with the green, red and black tricolor of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, into the back of the ambulance.

Bhutto's son Bilawal, 19, and daughters Bakhtawar, 17 and Aseefa, 14, prayed with their father at the tomb.

Their grief was shared by millions of poor Pakistanis, particularly in the rural hinterland of Sindh, the Bhutto family's political stronghold.

"Bhutto was my sister and Bhutto was like my mother," cried Imam Baksh, a farmer, among the throng lining the road. "With her death, the world has ended for us."

Mourners sobbed, some beat their heads and chests, and others vented anger with the government of President Pervez Musharraf, as Bhutto's husband and son lowered her body into the grave.