Less than 24 hours earlier, the two time prime minister of Pakistan was getting ready to address a rally in Rawalpindi as the nation uncertainly moved towards elections on Jan 8. But at precisely 6.16 p.m. Thursday, an assassin's bullets rudely cut short her political aspirations and put a question mark on the future of her volatile nation.
The body of Bhutto, 54, called Pinkie by her family in her childhood because of her peaches and cream complexion and later named Benazir, meaning someone without a match, was put into a white shroud as per Islamic custom and was lowered into a mud-walled grave in this village near Larkana.
The town was from where the mystique of the Bhutto name grew to seize the imagination of not only this nation of 165 million people but the subcontinent.
Clouds of dust swirled as tens of thousands of mourners congregated from all over the country to bid adieu to the woman who was nicknamed 'daughter of the East'. There was shocked silence, silent tears but also loud wailing and slogans against President Pervez Musharraf, holding him responsible for her death - like her colleague and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and husband Asif Zardari did.
The woman, who had the distinction of being the first woman head of government of an Islamic country and became in 1988 the world's youngest prime minister at the age of 35, left behind three teenaged children, her politically ambitious husband Asif Zardari, an ailing mother Nusrat - who at one time was acting chairperson of her PPP - and younger sister Sanam. And millions of grieving supporters for whom she personified hope for a better tomorrow and a more democratic Pakistan.
"She came to save Pakistan," a tearful Zardari told an Indian television channel shortly before burying his wife of 21 years. "But they killed her."
It was a brutal end to a star crossed life for a woman born to fame - and tragedy. She saw her father being hanged to death and her two brothers dead at the prime of their lives.
Bhutto, who initially wanted to join the foreign service and become a diplomat, developed uncanny political maturity from a very early age because of the tutelage she received under her father, the charismatic Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto whose popular government was overthrown by the army in 1977 and who was hung by military dictator Zia-ul-Haq two years later.
She left days after to return in 1986 - after being in exile abroad for the first time - crowds of over a million greeted her homecoming in Lahore, leading many to compare her return with "Caesar's return to Rome". That road led to her first stint as prime minister - she again became prime minister in 1990.
Her last homecoming, just two months ago was equally portentous. She came home after an eight-year exile on Oct 18. But a devastating blast ripped through her homecoming rally leaving 140 people dead.
Bhutto escaped. But only for two months and 10 days - till another rally in another town on Dec 27, 2007.
Benazir Bhutto came to save Pakistan
"She came to save Pakistan," a grieving Asif Zardari said Friday shortly before the funeral ceremony of his wife, Pakistan's former prime minister Benazir Bhutto who was assassinated in Rawalpindi.
But they killed her, Zardari told CNN-IBN tearfully over the phone.
Benazir claimed Musharraf was behind her, he said.
Zardari had reached Islamabad with his three children - Bilawal, Bakhtawar and Assefa - after midnight Thursday from Dubai. The family accompanied the body of the slain Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader from Rawalpindi to Sukkur airport in a C-130 flight early Friday.
From the airport, the body was taken to Naudero in a helicopter. The last stretch from Naudero to her village Garhi Khuda Baksh took place in an ambulance, arriving there before dawn.
Sections of PPP try to get Sanam, Zardari to head party
Some sections of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) are trying to convince former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's sister Sanam to take over the reins of the party while others favour her husband Asif Zardari instead.
Sanam Bhutto, the only surviving child of the late Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, lives in London and reached their ancestral home of Larkana in Sindh to attend the funeral prayers of her sister who was assassinated after addressing a rally in Rawalpindi Thursday evening.
According to PPP leaders, some were rooting for Sanam to take over leadership of the party. But there was also a section that was pinning their hopes on her brother-in-law and Benazir's husband Zardari, who landed in Pakistan with his three children, after midnight Thursday.
Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto is the fourth member of her family to die unnatural death and third in the Bhutto dynasty to die as a politician.
In 1979, Zia-ul-Haq hung Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto two years after his government was overthrown in a military coup.
In 1986, her youngest brother Shahnawaz, then 27, was found dead in his French Riviera apartment in Nice. He could have died of the drug abuse but the Bhutto family insists that he was murdered by poisoning. No one has brought to trial for the murder.
In 1996, Benazir's younger brother Murtaza, 42, was shot and killed in Karachi along with six supporters during an altercation with the police. The police said that Murtaza and his supporters had refused to allow them to search their vehicles as part of security measures in force in the city.
And on Thursday evening, Benazir Bhutto, 54, was brutally killed while she was leaving a campaign rally in Rawalpindi.
Benazir offered a Bollywood role in 1972
Years ago, when a shy, 18-year-old Benazir visited India for the first time, she was bowled over by an unusual proposal. Well-known Bollywood comedian, the late I.S. Johar, offered her the lead role in a Hindi movie.
"The incident happened in 1972 when Benazir had accompanied her father Z.A. Bhutto for the historic Shimla talks in the wake of the India-Pakistan war the previous year," recalled Bollywood historian Amar Solanki Friday.
A veteran Gujarati film director himself, Solanki told IANS that Johar always courted controversy. "By making the offer to Benazir, he shot to prominence in India, Pakistan and even Bangladesh which had been created in the aftermath of the war," he said.
However, Benazir politely declined Johar's proposal, saying she was destined for a different role in life.
