Rioting goes on

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told Pakistani television that Nawab Akbar Bugti's death Saturday was "the darkest chapter in Pakistan's history."

Police arrested 450 people for rioting, but the violence spread from Baluchistan province into neighbouring Sindh province, where ethnic Baluchis burned tires in Pakistan's largest city, Karachi.

Political leaders and analysts feared the killing of Bugti, an urbane former interior minister who led a decades-long violent campaign for greater rights for ethnic Baluch tribespeople, could influence more young Pakistanis to take up militancy.

Pakistani authorities accused Bugti, 79, of ordering attacks on vital government infrastructure to win more royalties for natural gas, oil and coal extracted from Pakistan's most impoverished region, Baluchistan.

Talaat Masood, a former army general, described Bugti's death as a "great tragedy" that will further divide ordinary Pakistanis from the military, led by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who has allied his government with Washington over strong opposition from many Pakistanis.

"It is very dangerous when we are already fighting (al-Qaeda) terrorists in Pakistan to bring about another reason for radicalising the youth," Masood said.