Pakistani minority Minister killed in Islamabad today
ISLAMABAD: Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s minority’s minister, has been assassinated by unidentified gunmen in Islamabad. Assailants purportedly sent by al-Qaida and the Taliban killed the only Christian member of Pakistan’s federal Cabinet on Wednesday, spraying his car with bullets outside his parents’ driveway.
Christian Minister Bhatti was an outspoken advocate of reforms to Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws, and his death comes two months after the Punjab governor, Salmaan Taseer, was gunned down just a few miles away.
The gunmen pulled Bhatti’s niece and guard out of his vehicle, then shot him several times inside the car. The minister was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead. The killers escaped. TV stations reported they left behind pamphlets for a Taliban-affiliated group.
A report said the pamphlet has been signed by a group named “Fidayeen e Muhammad” and “al-Qaida in Punjab”, strongly suggesting a link between the killing and the blasphemy controversy.
Human rights campaigners reacted with anger and dismay to the death of Bhatti, calling it a further sign of crumbling tolerance that highlighted the chronic failure of President Asif Ali Zardari’s government to safeguard liberal voices.
Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch said, “Shahbaz Bhatti was one of the few people in the government who took a brave and principled position on the blasphemy law. It appears like Salmaan Taseer before him that he has been killed for espousing this position.”
“This bodes ill for a tolerant Pakistan and renews questions about the government’s cowardly abandonment of those within its ranks who took a stand for tolerance.”
Hasan said the assassination raised fresh questions about the safety of Sherry Rehman, a parliamentarian who also championed reform of the blasphemy laws, and who has been living in semi-hiding since January.
Government officials condemned the killing in strong terms, including denouncing militancy.
