WITH TEARS, prayers and candlelight vigils, Pakistanis marked the first anniversary of Benazir Bhutto's assassination last Saturday.
The former prime minister's killing stunned the world and came to symbolise the growing Islamic militancy gripping her homeland.
The charismatic Bhutto, Pakistan's best-known politician internationally, was assassinated in a gun-and-bomb attack on December 27th, 2007, as she left a campaign rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, outside the capital, Islamabad. She was 54.
At sombre gatherings across the country, Bhutto was eulogised as a courageous leader who braved assassination threats in returning from exile to lead her party in parliamentary elections aimed at restoring democracy to Pakistan.
That vote, held after her death, brought a new civilian leadership to power - an unsteady government led by her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, which is struggling to cope with a burgeoning Islamic insurgency, economic collapse and mounting fears of war with India.
Tens of thousands of mourners, many of them weeping, beating their chests and flinging rose petals, converged on Bhutto's ancestral village in southern Sindh province, some trekking for miles on foot to reach the site. They packed the soaring mausoleum that she had built to honour her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was hanged by military dictator Gen Mohommad Zia al-Haq in 1979. It became her tomb as well.
Pakistan's political elite gathered at the family home nearby, but security threats forced her widower, now President Zardari, to scrap plans to address the crowds at the mausoleum. He assumed leadership of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party after her death and became the country's president in September after US-backed former military leader Pervez Musharraf stepped aside.
Bhutto's assassination remains unsolved. At many of the commemorative gatherings there was an undercurrent of anger over the fact that those who orchestrated the killing have yet to be caught and punished.
The then-government of Mr Musharraf cast the blame on militant leader Baitullah Mehsud, who remains at large in Pakistan's tribal areas. Many Pakistanis believe elements within the country's shadowy security apparatus had a hand in Bhutto's death - an allegation foretold by the victim herself in a letter written months before her death.
The present government has been criticised for failing to carry out a meaningful investigation into Bhutto's death. On the eve of the anniversary, the country's leading English-language TV station, Dawn, carried an acerbic report titled: "The Probe That Wasn't." President Zardari has called on the UN to oversee an inquiry, something the world body has said it is willing to do. But much crucial evidence is unavailable. No autopsy was carried out, and the murder scene was cleared and hosed down even before hospital authorities formally announced Bhutto's death.
In cities across Pakistan, mourners observed a moment of silence at 5:17pm, the time when the attack took place.
In Bhutto's birthplace of Karachi, the anniversary revived memories of the devastating suicide attack on her homecoming rally that took place just 10 weeks before her death.
Adnan Sabir Masih, one of the young party activists who had tried to shield Bhutto's vehicle with his body, spent months recovering from his wounds sustained in the October 18th bombing, which killed more than 150. Bhutto escaped unharmed on that occasion.
"Right at this moment, I would do it again to save her," said Mr Masih, tears welling in his eyes. "She was a great lady."