Christian Pakistani Politician Shahbaz Bhatti Slain; Islamists Claim Responsibility

Pakistan's minorities minister -- the only Christian in the Cabinet -- is the second top official in two months to be assassinated while campaigning against the country's blasphemy law, which says that anyone who insults Islam should be sentenced to death.

Shahbaz Bhatti, who had vowed to press the campaign against the law despite death threats, was shot dead today by gunmen who ambushed his car in broad daylight in the capital Islamabad.

Gunmen Kill Christian Pakistani Government Minister

AFP / Getty Images

The bulled-riddled car of Pakistani Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti is seen at a hospital compound following an attack Wednesday in Islamabad. A high-profile opponent of blasphemy laws, Bhatti died in the attack.

Up to four gunmen are believed to have opened fire on Bhatti today as he left his Islamabad home with his niece on his way to a Cabinet meeting, The Guardian reports. The hit men hauled the politician's niece and bodyguard out of his vehicle and then sprayed the car with bullets. The minorities minister was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital.

Police chief Wajid Durrani told the BBC that the assassins, who escaped in a white Suzuki, left pamphlets by al-Qaida and Tehrik-i-Taliban Punjab -- a branch of the Taliban in Pakistan's most populous province -- at the murder scene. Tehrik-i-Taliban told BBC Urdu that the group was responsible for the hit.

"This man was a known blasphemer of the Prophet [Muhammad]," said the group's deputy spokesman, Ahsanullah Ahsan. "We will continue to target all those who speak against the law which punishes those who insult the prophet. Their fate will be the same."

The killing comes two months after Punjab governor Salman Taseer was assassinated by one of his bodyguards.

Soon after Taseer's slaying on Jan. 4, Bhatti reported that he had received death threats. "I was told that if I was to continue the campaign against the blasphemy law, I will be assassinated, I will be beheaded," he said. "But forces of violence, forces of extremism cannot harass me, cannot threaten me."

Pakistani Government Minister Shahbaz Bhatti

AFP / Getty Images

Shahbaz Bhatti is the second top official in two months to be assassinated in Pakistan while campaigning against the country's blasphemy law.

Earlier this year, another campaigner against the country's blasphemy law -- Sherry Rehman, the former information minister -- told The Times of London she was receiving two death threats every hour. She has since gone into hiding and may have left the country.

Although no one has been executed under the blasphemy law, more than 30 accused have been killed by lynch mobs.

Rehman, Taseer and Bhatti became targets for radical Islamists after they spoke out in defense of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who was sentenced to death last November for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad during a row with Muslim villagers.

Christians, who make up about 1.5 percent of Pakistan's 185 million population, have been left reeling from the loss of one of their highest-profile advocates. "We have been orphaned today!" Rehman Masih, a Christian resident of Islamabad, told The Associated Press. "Now who will fight for our rights?"