The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Karachi

Shops were shuttered, weddings were cancelled and daily life was on hold for tens of millions of Pakistanis as the nation mourned the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

On the second day of official mourning for the slain opposition leader, most people were unable to buy food or petrol, with almost all shops, fuel stations, banks and offices closed down.

The streets of the country's main cities -- Karachi, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar -- were largely empty, and in many places there was evidence of the unrest that has left more than 30 dead since Bhutto's killing. Stick-wielding gangs roamed the deserted highways of Karachi, the country's normally teeming economic hub of 12 million people, trying to stop anyone who ventured out of the house.

"Karachi was never so quiet, so sad and so scary," said Shahana Rehmat, a housewife. "We are under virtual house arrest and about to run out of fresh food and kitchen supplies." "I have not found anything to eat since Friday," Janat Khan, a labourer, told AFP as he sat on the side of a litter-strewn road in the port city.

Aqib Khan, an IT professional from Islamabad, said he started a 19-hour drive to Karachi for his holidays on Thursday and arrived the following day to scenes of chaos. "As I entered the city we heard gunfire, saw looting and mobs ransacking public property," Khan said. "There is very little fuel left in my car and I don't think that I will be able to get out in next couple of days."

Pakistan's largest private charity, the Edhi Foundation, said they too were victims of the chaos.

"They've smashed up our ambulances," an official from the charity said. "And we don't have any fuel." In Peshawar, a frontier town in the northwest, more than 3,000 people chanting slogans against President Pervez Musharraf and wearing black armbands tried to smash up shops in yet another show of anger. Police beat them back with batons and teargas, witnesses said.

Dozens of protesters also gathered in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan's sector of the divided Himalayan territory of Kashmir.

"Benazir was the voice of the poor," shouted Nadeem, an 18-year-old bus conductor who goes by only one name.

The southwestern city of Quetta, near the Afghan border, was almost completely shut down, although some public transport was running. In a violence-wracked, alcohol-free country where weddings provide some of the only entertainment for many families, several marriage ceremonies planned for the weekend were cancelled amid the unrest.

"Guests had arrived from other cities," Waqar ul-Haq, the brother of a 23-year-old bride-to-be named Bushra, told AFP after a hotel cancelled a wedding reception in the eastern city of Lahore.

"The reception was cancelled at the 11th hour, just when everything was ready."