Hundreds of thousands of mourners gathered in the southern province of Sindh watching her coffin, draped in a flag of her Pakistan People's Party (PPP), making its way into the white-domed Bhutto ancestral cemetery to be buried next to the remains of her father and two brothers who also died violently.
Her father, former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was toppled in a military coup in 1977 and hanged in 1979. Her brother Shah Nawaz died of poisoning in his apartment in the south of France in 1985. Her other brother, Murtaza, was shot dead in Karachi in 1996 after being accused of terrorism, which Benazir blamed on Pakistan's intelligence services.
Bhutto, who died at 54, became the first elected female leader of a Muslim country in 1988. She was ousted in 1990 on corruption charges but became prime minister a second time from 1993 to 1996.
She went into eight years of self-exile in Britain and the United Arab Emirates until she returned in October to seek election, shortly after which she narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in a massive bombing in Karachi that left 140 people dead.
Bhutto's assassination, which also killed 20 of her supporters in Rawalpindi during a campaign rally Thursday, sent shockwaves across the country and raised questions on the perpetrators and whether the general election would be held on Jan. 8.
Her killing unleashed further violence. More than 30 people were killed since her death as police confronted angry protesters in several cities, where mobs ransacked offices and torched buildings and vehicles.
Some 16,000 paramilitary forces were deployed in the Sindh province, including 10,000 in Karachi – a PPP stronghold – and were ordered to shoot rioters on sight.
The government accused al-Qaida and the Taliban for the bombing, saying Bhutto was on their hit-list and the attack was aimed at undermining the security of Pakistan.
Bhutto, educated at Harvard and Oxford, was a strong critic of al-Qaida and extremist Islamic groups long before al-Qaida gained notoriety for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
But she was also critical of the government of President Pervez Musharraf and the security services. Analysts say she had many enemies in her turbulent country, making it difficult to pinpoint her real killers.
Some of her mourning supporters at the burial site in the Sindh village of Ghari Khuda Baksh, who tearfully beat on their heads and chests in grief, chanted slogans accusing Musharraf and his government for her death, saying they don't believe al-Qaida killed her.
Bhutto's murder could unleash the worst crisis in Pakistan's modern history amid indications that the planned elections in two weeks might have to be delayed or cancelled, which analysts warn could plunge the country into chaos and more violence.
Pakistani analysts say the Musharraf regime has failed to contain political violence in the past year, marginalized much of the political forces, and its credibility was too weak to hold fair elections and to lead the country towards democracy.
Rasul Baksh Rais, a political scientist at Lahore University of Management Sciences, told AFP that the assassination of Bhutto was "symptomatic of the pent-up social anger and frustration in the country," warning that Pakistan "may plunge into still greater uncertainty and chaos if the Musharraf regime continues to fail in reaching out to all the political forces in the country in setting an agenda for genuine change."
Nawaz Sharif, an opposition leader and former prime minister who was ousted by Musharraf in a military coup in 1999, said Friday any election held under the current government would not be credible.
He told reporters Friday that if the government is determined to hold the elections on time, "it is going on a self-destructive path, which will not only destroy the government itself, but will also destroy the country."
But other analysts say the country is also damned if elections are not held on time, warning that without that first move towards restoring democracy, the threat of chaos is even bigger.
Anarchy in a politically and socially divided Muslim country that possesses nuclear bombs has sent jitters across the world, where leaders and commentators stressed the need to defuse the tension through democratic means and polling booths following Bhutto's assassination.
Some said that Bhutto's killing showed that Pakistan was "becoming an even bigger atomic time bomb," but others hoped that her death might put the country back on the democratic path.
In addition to fears of what the future holds for the country, Bhutto is survived by her husband Asif Zardari and their three children.