Islamabad  - It will be all praise for Benazir Bhutto as Pakistan Saturday reveres its former prime minister on the anniversary of her assassination while campaigning for a third term in office.

Tens of thousands of followers were to assemble in the small town of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh in the southern province of Sindh where Bhutto lies in a family tomb.

She was killed along with three dozen other people in a suicide gun-and-bomb attack soon after she completed an election rally in the garrison town of Rawalpindi on December 27 last year.

The attack was blamed on Islamist militants plaguing Pakistan's ungoverned north-western tribal region near the Afghan border.

Ardent supporters of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP), which now heads the national government, were converging on Garhi Khuda Bakhsh from all over the country
- some walking hundreds of kilometres in honour of their slain leader.

Special trains are also being run to the town, where Bhutto's widower, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, will lead the mourning ceremonies at the weekend.

At least 50,000 people had arrived at the tomb by Friday afternoon and the numbers were expected to swell enormously through the day, PPP spokesman Jameel Soomro said.

Crowds of people chanted slogan "Bibi (Bhutto) is alive" on the arrival of every new caravan of mourners.

Authorities threw a security blanket over the area amid fears of violence during the mammoth commemoration. Thousands of police were deployed to provide security to high-profile participants, including Zardari's son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani will be among several parliamentarians attending the ceremonies.

More low-key ceremonies are also expected to take place at the site of Bhutto's assassination in Rawalpindi, where a group of PPP loyalists Friday were sitting next to huge portraits of the slain leader, surrounded by floral wreaths and earthen lamps.

"One year has passed but we come here every night to pay homage to her," a PPP activist, Aafaq Khan, said as he laid flowers at the site.

"We feel like orphans today. In her absence, we see devastation everywhere. She was not only a political leader but we regard her also as our spiritual leader," an aged party worker said with tears in his eyes.

Grand banners, party flags and posters of the world famous leader were displayed at the gates to the park where Bhutto made her last public speech.

"Life will go on even without you, but it will be very gloomy and restless," read one of the posters.

Meanwhile, Pakistan was issuing a commemorative 10-rupee coin and a postage stamp Saturday, which has been declared a national holiday in memory of the charismatic leader who became the first woman to reign over a Muslim nation.

The government has already renamed several towns, buildings and roads after Bhutto.

Dubbed the "Daughter of the East," Bhutto was granted a posthumous United Nations award for human rights earlier this month.

A spokesman of PPP-led Pakistani government and Information Minister Sherry Rehman told reporters in Nou Dero, home village of Bhutto, that the government was striving to accomplish the dream of slain leader to make Pakistan a welfare state. (dpa)