Bhutto supporter shot dead, arson continues

His brother, a provincial assembly candidate for the PPP, was wounded in the attack. The killing brought the death toll to 33 in violence since Bhutto’s assassination on Thursday. Almost all of the deaths occurred in the southern province of Sindh, the PPP’s power base.

“Two gunmen were waiting in a vehicle, their faces covered, and they opened fire,” said Shaukat Ali Shah, deputy inspector general of police in the city of Hyderabad in Sindh.

Separately, police in Hyderabad, under orders to shoot violent protesters on sight, wounded two protesters among a group burning tyres on the street.

Downtown neighbourhoods of Karachi, the volatile capital of Sindh, were virtually deserted, as armed police and paramilitary forces patrolled streets. Shops and petrol pumps were closed as the city observed a national three-day mourning period.

There were isolated acts of violence and arson, and roads were littered with broken glass and charred shells of cars. There was firing in the air in Lyari, a neighbourhood of Karachi where support for Bhutto runs deep, according to a paramilitary spokesman.

Election Commission offices in nine districts were also set ablaze by protesters.

Buildings and ambulances run by the Edhi Foundation, a charity that runs welfare centres, were vandalised.

“Seven of our centres have been burnt in Karachi. Nineteen of our ambulances have been burnt, and eight others have been damaged,” said Anwar Ali Kazmi, a spokesman for the non-governmental organisation.

Sindh home secretary Ghulam Mohtaram said rioters had burned or damaged 947 vehicles, 131 banks and 31 petrol stations up until midnight on Friday.