Pakistanis mourn Bhutto one year on

By Asim Tanveer

GARHI KHUDA BAKHSH, Pakistan (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of supporters of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto gathered in her home town on Saturday to mark the first anniversary of her assassination.

The anniversary of the killing that sparked days of violence by her supporters, comes as Pakistan faces yet another crisis.

Tension has been rising with India over last month's militant attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai, stoking fears of conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Bhutto, 54, was killed in a gun and bomb attack in the city of Rawalpindi as she emerged from an election rally just over two months after she had returned from years of self-exile.

In February, the two-time prime minister's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) rode a wave of sympathy to win an election and it now heads a coalition government. Her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, has become president.

Zardari, in a statement marking the anniversary, said the attack on his wife was an attack on the viability of the state and aimed at undermining efforts to build democratic structures and to fighting militancy.

"The tyrants and the killers have killed her but they shall never be able to kill her ideas that drove and inspired a generation to lofty aims," Zardari said.

Security was tight at the Bhutto family's graveyard in the village of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, in Sindh province. She was buried next to her father, former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was hanged in 1979 after being deposed in a military coup.