Pakistan's police shoot rioters and 23 die as Bhutto lies buried next to her father

At least 23 people including three policemen were killed in protests across the country.

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Asif Ali Zardari (with white cap), husband of assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, lays flowers at the grave of his wife after her funeral in Garhi Khuda Bukhsh

Asif Ali Zardari, in black clothes and white cap on left, touches the coffin of his wife Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto during Bhutto's burial today

The assassinated opposition leader was buried next to her father in the white marble mausoleum she built for him and her two dead brothers.

Mourners outside the family home in the southern province of Sindh wept and beat their heads in grief, crying "Benazir is alive".

The funeral - in accordance with Muslim tradition - took place less than 24 hours after her assassination in Rawalpindi.

While the woman who had been tipped as Pakistan's next leader was being buried, her supporters vented their anger by ransacking banks, waging shootouts with police and burning railway stations in scenes of chaos which threatened to plunge the country into deep turmoil less than two weeks before a crucial election.

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Crowds of Bhutto's supporters cling to the side of the ambulance carrying her body to its resting place. Mourners wept and beat their heads and chests.

New video: This footage, released today, shows Benazir Bhutto seconds before she was assassinated

Security forces were given permission to shoot rioters on sight.

The unrest, which saw some of Pakistan's worst political disturbances in years, was most severe in Sindh, Ms Bhutto's home province and her main base of support. All but one of the dead were killed there.

"We're anticipating the situation might get worse after the funeral," Sindh interior minister Akhtar Zaman said.

Ms Bhutto's funeral procession began at her ancestral residence in the town of Naudero.

Her plain wood coffin, draped in the red, green and black flag of her Pakistan Peoples Party, was accompanied by her husband Asif Ali Zardari as it was carried in a white ambulance toward her family's massive mausoleum in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh four miles away. As it passed, mourners threw petals.

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Crush: The former prime minister gets into her car, unaware she is about to die

Local people pay their tributes by lighting candles on a portrait of former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto in Calcutta

Supporters of assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto place her body into a grave during her funeral in Garhi Khuda Bukhsh, near Nauder

Earlier, as the coffin arrived at the family home, Mr Zardari - who was accompanying the coffin with their three children - urged the crowd: "Show patience. Give us courage to bear this loss."

Ms Bhutto, 53, was buried next to her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's first democratically elected prime minister who was deposed in a military coup in 1979 and later hanged.

As mourners gathered around the house Nazakat Soomro, 32, said: "She was not just the leader of the PPP, she was a leader of the whole country.

"I don't know what will happen to the country now," he said.

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Bhutto's grave is dug next to the burial place of her father where her funeral took place

In the rest of Pakistan violence reigned. In an apparent militant attack, a bomb at an election meeting in the country's troubled north-west killed six people including a candidate from the ruling party.

The security forces in Sindh were given the authority to shoot rioters to stop them damaging property.

"We have orders to shoot on sight," said Major Asad Ali, spokesman for the paramilitary-rangers.

Police fired on protesters in the southern city of Hyderabad. "We opened fire when protesters got more violent and we failed to disperse them.

"Five of them have received bullet wounds," said police officer Abdul Qadir Summo.

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Since her assassination yesterday, Benazir Bhutto's supporters have taken to the streets in violent protest

Troops in Pakistan have been told to 'shoot on sight' protesters burning and looting Pakistan's cities

Across Sindh hundreds of cars, trucks and buses smouldered while crowds of men set up road blocks and chanted slogans against President Pervez Musharraf.

About 7,000 people in the central city of Multan ransacked seven banks and a fuel station and in the capital, Islamabad, about 100 protesters burned tyres in a commercial quarter of the city.

Fears were prompted that the election on 8 January would be put off, heightened by the decision of the other main opposition leader, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, to boycott the poll.

However, the caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro said the government had no immediate plan to postpone parliamentary elections.

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Rioters run through the streets in Pakistan where they are protesting Bhutto's assassination

"Right now the elections stand where they were," he told a news conference.

Bhutto's party said it would observe 40 days of mourning.

The assassination has left MsBhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party leaderless and plunged the country into a bout of recriminations, with President Musharraf blaming Muslim extremists and Bhutto supporters accusing his government of failing to protect her in the wake of death threats and previous attempts on her life.

Ms Bhutto's husband, who flew in from Dubai accompanied by their son Bilawal, 19, and daughters Bakhtawar, 17 and Aseefa, 14, said the government should step down.

"We demand the immediate resignation of the government," he said.

Another fire is started as emotional protesters throng the streets in Pakistan