Bhutto supporter shot dead, ambulances, shops burned

By Asim Tanveer

KARACHI (Reuters) - Masked gunmen shot dead a supporter of Benazir Bhutto early on Saturday, while protesters torched shops, lorries, welfare centres and ambulances overnight as violence triggered by her assassination entered a third day.

The 27-year-old man was wearing a tunic made from a Pakistan People's Party (PPP) flag and had just shouted "Bhutto is great" while returning from the mausoleum where Bhutto was buried on Friday, police said.

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, and a city of 14 million people, 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.