PAKISTAN: Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, who had called for changes in the country's controversial blasphemy law, dies in a gun attack in Islamabad

Record ID: 614778

  • Title: PAKISTAN: Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, who had called for changes in the country's controversial blasphemy law, dies in a gun attack in Islamabad
  • Date: 3rd March 2011
  • Summary: BLOOD ON SEAT OF BHATTI'S CAR
  • Embargoed: 18th March 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Pakistan, Pakistan
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVA7ZA54AIUKWLIOS6KNWLPW15XO
  • Story Text: A group of gunmen shot dead on Wednesday (March 2) Pakistan's minister for minorities, a Christian, making him the second senior official to be killed this year for challenging a blasphemy law under which anyone who speaks ill of Islam faces the death penalty.
    Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti was shot while travelling in a car near an Islamabad market, police said. He was the only Christian in the cabinet.
    Bahadur Khan, an employee of a roadside hotel near the place where Bhatti was killed, told Reuters Television he saw Bhatti's car coming out of his mother's house.
    "As Shahbaz Bhatti's car came from this side, a white Toyota Mehran came from the other side. Two men got out of the Toyota and first they came to the back seat and fired, and then they moved to the front and fired on the windscreen," Khan said.
    Khan said he and others who saw the incident, rushed to the car after the assailants had fled, but Bhatti was already dead.
    "Shahbaz Bhatti was dead, sir. When I came near the car, Shahaz Bhatti was lying on the seat in a crouched position. He was dead," Khan said.
    Islamabad police chief Wajid Durrani told reporters the initial reports were that there were three men who attacked Bhatti.
    Bullets hit Bhatti's car four or five times through the windscreen. Blood covered the back seat. A hospital spokesman said Bhatti received several wounds.
    Bhatti was traveling without security, having left two escorts provided by city police at home, Durrani said.
    Last month, in an interview with The Christian Post, Bhatti said he had received threats but relied on his faith for protection.
    Bhatti told the newspaper he had received a call from the Taliban commander who had warned him that if he brought any changes in the blasphemy law and spoke on this issue, then he would be killed.
    However, he said that, after the assassination of governor Salman Taseer, he did not believe that bodyguards could save anyone.
    "I believe in the protection from heaven," Bhatti had said.
    The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), commonly called the Pakistani Taliban, had called for Bhatti's death because of his attempts to soften the anti-blasphemy law.
    Television reports said pamphlets allegedly from the TTP denouncing blasphemers and calling for their deaths were found at the scene. Durrani said he had no knowledge of the pamphlets.
    The anti-blasphemy 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 presidential pardon for the 45-year-old Christian farmhand, was gunned down by one of his bodyguards.
    That killing was widely praised by hardline Islamist groups such as Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), the largest religious party in Pakistan.
    This time, however, Farid Paracha, a senior leader of JI, told Reuters his party condemned this killing.
    He said this killing was a conspiracy and it may be an attempt to divert attention from the case of Raymond Davis, an American CIA contractor currently on trial for killing two Pakistanis in Lahore on January 27.
    The United States says he has diplomatic immunity, while Pakistan says it is a matter for the courts. The case has been taken up by religious parties in Pakistan who often call for Davis to be hanged.
    The latest shooting is likely to further deter any attempt to change the blasphemy law that mandates death for anyone who speaks ill of the Islam's Prophet Mohammad.
    Christians who make up about two percent of Pakistan's population have been especially concerned about the law saying it offers them no protection.
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