Minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti assassinated in Islamabad

(Wasif Ali Khan, a friend of Shahbaz Bhatti looks at the bullet-riddled window of car while he mourns outside a local hospital in Islamabad)

ISLAMABAD: Gunmen shot and killed Pakistan’s government minister for religious minorities on Wednesday, the latest attack on a high-profile Pakistani figure who had urged reforming harsh blasphemy laws that impose the death penalty for insulting Islam.

Shahbaz Bhatti was on his way to work in Islamabad when unknown gunmen riddled his car with bullets, police officer Mohmmad Iqbal said. The minister arrived dead at Shifa Hospital and his driver was also wounded badly, hospital spokesman Asmatullah Qureshi said.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the killing, saying the minister had been “punished” for being a blasphemer.

Witnesses said the attackers scattered leaflets signed by “The Qaeda and the Taliban of Punjab” at the attack scene, which read: “This is the punishment of this cursed man.”

Taliban militants had called for Bhatti’s death because of his attempts to amend theblasphemy law.

“He was a blasphemer like Salman Taseer,” spokesman Sajjad Mohmand said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

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