Islamabad: Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti was gunned down by unknown assailants in the capital on Wednesday.
Sources said Bhatti was going to work when some unidentified gunmen intercepted his official vehicle in I-8 Sector and sprayed him with bullets. As a result, he received bullet wounds in his head and chest and was taken to Shifa International Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries.
His driver Gul Sher, who escaped unhurt, told media that the minster had died on way to hospital.
The sources said that three to four assailants had attacked Shahbaz Bhatti and managed to escape in a white Mehran.
Hospital sources confirmed that the federal minster has killed in the attack.
Media reports said that Bhatti’s vehicle was not being escorted by security personnel when the armed men attacked him.
The minister had been receiving life threats since the murder of former Punjab governor Salman Taseer.
Eyewitnesses told that the unknown attackers, clad in shalwar kameez, after completing the task left some pamphlets on the spot, in which they threatened that every person involved in blasphemy would meet the same fate.
IGP, Islamabad, Wajid Durrani told media that the federal minister was attacked a few yards away form his residence.
He said that Bhatti received eight bullet wounds, however, 25 bullet casing were found from the crime scene.
Durrani said though two security squads one each from police and Frontier Constabulary (FC) had been provided to the minister, he did not allow the security to follow him whenever he visited his mother’s house.
It will be premature to say if any foreign power was behind the incident, Durrani said on being asked whether foreign hand was involved in the killing as media have been claiming hundreds of foreign spies were active in the country.
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