ISLAMABAD, (Reuters) – Gunmen shot dead Pakistan’s only Christian government minister today for challenging a law that mandates the death penalty for insulting Islam, the second top official killed this year over the blasphemy law.
The assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti, minister for minorities, is the latest sign of deep political instability in the nuclear-armed U.S. ally. Frequent militant attacks and chronic economic problems have raised fears for Pakistan’s future.
Pakistani Taliban militants claimed responsibility for killing Bhatti, with a Taliban spokesman saying the minister was a blasphemer.
Bhatti was shot in broad daylight while travelling in a car near a market in the capital, Islamabad, police said.
“The attackers were wearing shawls and opened indiscriminate fire as they got close to the minister’s car,” Islamabad police chief Wajid Durrani told reporters.
The windscreen of Bhatti’s car had four or five bullet holes and blood covered the back seat. A hospital spokesman said Bhatti, who had spoken out against the anti-blasphemy law, received several wounds.
The law has been in the spotlight since last November, when a court sentenced a Christian mother of four to death.
On Jan. 4, the governor of the most populous province of Punjab, Salman Taseer, who had strongly opposed the law and sought a presidential pardon for the 45-year-old Christian farmhand, was killed by one of his bodyguards who had been angered by the governor’s stand.
Bhatti was travelling without security, having left two police escorts at home, Durrani said.
“There was no protection when he left the house,” the police chief said. “There was just a private driver with him. We don’t know about the minister’s thinking, but we had provided him two escorts because he was under threat.”
Al Qaeda-linked Pakistani Taliban militants, fighting to bring down the state, had called for Bhatti’s death because of his attempts to amend the law. A militant spokesman, Sajjad Mohmand, said they had killed him.
“He was a blasphemer like Salman Taseer,” Mohmand said by telephone from an undisclosed location.
Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani condemned the killing and ordering the Ministry of Interior to investigate.
