Benazir Bhutto's party challenged official versions of the opposition leader's assassination and accused the government on Saturday of trying to cover up failures just days before planned elections.

Fresh violence brought the death toll since Bhutto's assassination in a gun and bomb attack on Thursday to 40, stoking fears a January 8 election meant to restore civilian rule to the nuclear-armed United States ally could be put off.

Al-Qaeda-linked militants denied being behind the killing of the 54-year-old former prime minister. Pakistan's government had said on Friday it had proof of al-Qaeda involvement.

Bhutto's party dismissed this official account, saying there was no solid evidence and President Pervez Musharraf's embattled administration sought to cover up its failure to protect her.

A close Bhutto aide who prepared her body for burial also dismissed as "ludicrous" a government theory that she died after hitting her head on a sunroof during the suicide attack. Sherry Rehman, a spokesperson for Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, said Bhutto was shot in the head.

Pakistanis remained on edge on Saturday after protesters torched shops, lorries, welfare centres and ambulances overnight.

"There's a lot of rioting going on in my neighbourhood, Clifton. Everything has been burned up. Shops have been looted," Ali Khan (36) country manager for Audi Pakistan, told Reuters as he stood outside his Audi garage in Karachi's business district.

In Karachi, masked gunmen shot dead a 27-year-old man wearing a tunic made from the flag of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP). He had just shouted "Bhutto is great" while returning from the mausoleum where Bhutto was buried on Friday, police said.

Security forces shot dead two others among 400 PPP activists trying to break into an oilfield facility near Hyderabad, police said.

Militant leader
Late on Friday, Interior Ministry spokesperson Javed Iqbal Cheema told a news conference: "We have intelligence intercepts indicating that al-Qaeda leader Baitullah Mehsud is behind [Bhutto's] assassination."

However, a spokesperson for Mehsud denied the claim.

"I strongly deny it. Tribal people have their own customs. We don't strike women," Maulvi Omar said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

A PPP spokesperson said the government must show hard evidence.

"The government is nervous," he said. "They are trying to cover up their failure" to provide adequate security.

Tens of thousands of Bhutto's supporters wept and beat their heads as she was laid to rest on Friday. Troops were called out to quell protests in her home province of Sindh, where she had huge support, particularly among the rural poor.

Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, told the BBC her will would be read out to a meeting of the PPP by her son on Sunday.

Asked if he wanted to lead the party, Zardari replied: "It depends on the party and it depends on the will."

Many mourners chanted slogans against Musharraf and the UUS, which backs the former general in the hope he can ensure stability in the face of Islamist violence and relies on Pakistan as an ally against al-Qaeda and Afghanistan's Taliban.

Musharraf seized power in a military coup in 1999 but left the army last month to become a civilian president.

Bhutto returned home from self-imposed exile in October, hoping to become prime minister for a third time. She escaped unhurt from a suicide attack then that killed about 140 people. The government said al-Qaeda was also behind that attack.

Washington had encouraged Bhutto, relatively liberal by Pakistan standards and an outspoken opponent of Islamic militancy and violence. Her death wrecked US hopes of a power-sharing agreement between her and Musharraf.

US President George Bush has urged Pakistanis to honour Bhutto's memory by going ahead with the election.

So far the government has not announced any decision to call off or postpone the vote, but the election commission says it is planning an emergency meeting on Monday.

The opposition party led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has said it would boycott the January election if it goes ahead, and a spokesperson said on Saturday Sharif was trying to convince Bhutto's PPP to do likewise.

Musharraf imposed a state of emergency in November in what was seen as an attempt to stop the judiciary from vetoing his re-election as president. He lifted emergency rule this month.

Bhutto, who became the Muslim world's first democratically elected woman prime minister in 1988, was buried alongside her father, former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. He was hanged in 1979 after being deposed by a military coup. -- Reuters

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