GUNMEN SHOT DEAD PAKISTAN'S RELIGIOUS MINORITIES MINISTER

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Unidentified gunmen shot dead Pakistan's Minister for Minorities Affairs yesterday, the second assassination within a month of a high-profile government figure who had called for amending the country's blasphemy law to prevent its misuse by religious extremists.
Shahbaz Bhatti, a 42-year-old Roman Catholic, had been aware of the danger, saying in a video-taped message meant for broadcast in the event of his death that he was being threatened by the Taliban and al-Qaida. The threats would not deter him from speaking for persecuted Christians and other minorities, he said.

• Four assailants in a small white Suzuki Mehran car stopped Bhatti's black official Toyota Corolla car just as he left his mother's house in Islamabad's I-8/3 residential sector for his office, police said.
• Three assailants got out and opened fire with automatic weapons into the vehicle of the minister who was fatally hit while his driver survived almost unhurt, Islamabad's Inspector-General of Police Wajid Durrani told the media.
• The attackers fled in their car and a police search for them was underway.
• The driver, Sher Gul, rushed the bleeding minister to a nearby hospital where doctors pronounced him dead.

Durrani said two security squads, one from the police and the other from the paramilitary, were deputed for protection of the minister who had been receiving threats.
Bhatti relatives complained that despite threats to his life, Bhatti was not provided with a bullet-proof vehicle for his safety. They said the body would be taken to Faislabad district in Punjab province for burial in the minister's ancestoral village.

• Domestic television channels showed leaflets found at the murder site, bearing printed warning to blasphemers in Urdu language and said banned Tehrik Taliban Pakistan has claimed responsibility for the assassination of the minister.
• Before joining the government about three years ago, Bhatti (43) had been active in an alliance of minorities and also as president of Christian Liberation Front.
• Both bodies lobbied for repeal of or amendments to the blasphemy law, which lays down death penalty for those found guilty of insulting Islam.
• The killing of Shahbaz Bhati is the second high-profile murder in Pakistan two months.

Earlier Punjab Governor Salman Taseer(left photo) was shot and killed by one of his police bodyguards in the national capital on January 4, 2011.
Both Salman, a Muslim belonging to the center-left Pakistan People's Party, and Shabaz Bhatti, a Christian known for his active role for rights of minorities, were targeted because of their calls for reforms in the country's blasphemy law. Some other assassinations, for different reasons, preceded Bhatti's murder in recent months.

Source: Agency