City's Pakistani Community To Mourn Bhutto With Vigils

Leaders in New York's Pakistani community are organizing special prayers and candlelight vigils to mourn the assassination of a Pakistan opposition leader and former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, who was killed yesterday in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

Police heightened security at sensitive locations throughout the city, including at the Pakistani consulate and in neighborhoods with high concentrations of Pakistani residents, Mayor Bloomberg said.

At a Pakistani restaurant in the Jackson Heights section of Queens, Big Kababish, patrons yesterday watched a Pakistani news channel in silence as coverage unfolded. The restaurant's owner, Tahir Kamil, said it was a sad day for the country.

"This is a very big loss for our nation. She was a great leader. She stood for democracy and she stood against terrorism," he said.

Community leaders and supporters of Bhutto gathered at a candlelight vigil outside a mosque on Coney Island Avenue, Makki Masjid, and the mosque's senior imam, Mohammad Hafiz, said he would lead a special prayer and read a passage from the Koran on Friday in Bhutto's honor.

The Pakistani consulate will fly its flag at half-mast for three days, the official mourning period announced by President Musharraf, and will display a condolence book, a spokesman, Zahoor Ahmed, said.

Students at New York University and Columbia University were contacting the Islamic Center at NYU yesterday, looking for more information about the suicide bombing attack and the history of Bhutto, a spokesman for the center, Haroon Moghul, said. Students expressed "shock, concern, and bewilderment" over what happened, he said.

The president of the Pakistani American Federation of New York, Asghar Choudhri, said he spent yesterday comforting those who gathered at his office and mourning Bhutto's death.

"We are all crying. It is a great loss and we miss her," he said.

The death of Bhutto is one of the biggest losses in the country's history, Mahammad Farooqi, the editor of a community newspaper, the Pakistan Post, said.

"The Pakistan nation is going to face consequences with whatever has happened today. The country's sovereignty is on the stakes right now because she is the most popular leader in Pakistan," Mr. Farooqi said.