KARACHI, PAKISTAN — Authorities sifting through clues in the devastating bombing of Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming procession questioned three men Saturday, a source close to the investigation said.
The police and Bhutto’s associates acknowledged, however, that the list of groups and individuals that might have an interest in harming the pro- Western former prime minister was a long one.
Police circulated a sketch of a man they believed blew himself up only a few feet from the former leader’s armored vehicle Friday, killing at least 136 people and injuring hundreds of others, as she returned from eight years of self-imposed exile.
Some Pakistani newspapers took it a step further, printing graphic photographs of the man’s decapitated head in which his facial features were clearly identifiable.
The three men in custody were picked up in Punjab province, which serves as a home base for several major Pakistani militant groups. A police investigator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said police believed they might have traced a vehicle the bomber used.
Bhutto and authorities have blamed Islamic militants for the attack, but she also suggested possible complicity on the part of some political allies of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Bhutto, 54, also has complained that measures by local authorities to guard her convoy were inadequate.
Musharraf’s government responded angrily Saturday, saying that everything possible had been done to ensure Bhutto’s safety but she had courted danger with a long, open-air procession into Karachi.
“The government provided the best possible security to her,” said Tariq Azim, the minister of state for information.
Bhutto stayed out of sight Saturday, sequestered with aides at her residence in Karachi.
She had planned this weekend to hold a large rally in her family’s ancestral hometown of Larkana, where she was to visit the tomb of her father. But all such appearances were on hold while party faithful observed three days of mourning in the wake of the attack early Friday.
