Pakistan vote goes ahead despite fatal blast

Authorities imposed a curfew in a northwestern Pakistani town on Sunday a day after a suicide bomber attacked supporters of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto killing 46 people.

"There are now 46 people dead, and about 50 critically wounded who are being evacuated to Peshawar," said Fida Mohammad Khan, senior local administration official in the northwestern town of Parachinar bordering Afghanistan.

A security official said there had been initial confusion about the number of dead because bodies were so badly damaged in the Saturday attack. Some additional victims also died in hospital from their wounds, the official said. On Saturday, an interior ministry spokesman gave the toll as 37 after the attack.

Security officials earlier told AFP that the suicide bomber attacked a Pakistan People's Party meeting outside the office of a local election candidate. The candidate's family said he was safe. Khan said the situation in the town was tense and security extremely tight.

"We have imposed restrictions on movement of people in sensitive areas of the town," Khan said.

Saturday's blast in Parachinar near the Afghan border was the most deadly during a campaign for a Feb. 18 general election that nuclear-armed Pakistan's allies hope will help restore stability.

"We have imposed a curfew to avert any riots. If the situation remains calm then we may relax it," Zaheer-ul-Islam, the district's top government administrator, told Reuters.

A resident, Khalil Shah, said gunfire was continuing in the town. Some areas were very tense especially where Sunni and Shiite communities live together, he said.

Paramilitary soldiers had taken up positions in the town to control violence. Angry supporters of the candidate on Saturday night burned down several shops and damaged some government buildings, a security official said.

Campaigning for the elections to a new parliament and provincial assemblies has been overshadowed by security fears, especially after opposition leader Bhutto was killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack on Dec. 27.

President Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup, told the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan that the election would go ahead as planned, saying any effort to derail the democratic process or the holding of elections will be foiled.

The retired army general is facing rising public anger following decisions late last year to declare emergency rule, purge the judiciary and impose restrictions on the press -- some of which are still in place.