A Pakistani court has sentenced two former police officers to 17 years in prison for failing to protect former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, but acquitted five suspected militants who had confessed to taking part in her 2007 assassination.

A Pakistani court has issued arrest warrants for two senior police officials accused of negligence in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, a prosecutor said today.

At least eight people died and seven were injured when a three-floor building in Rawalpindi collapsed today after fireworks stored on the ground floor exploded, police said.

Benazir Bhutto supporters ransacked banks and burned train stations in furious rampages across Pakistan today.

Pakistani authorities have reconstructed the severed head of the suicide bomber who killed seven people near President Pervez Musharraf’s office as a probe was opened to determine who was behind the blast, police said today.