ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A group of gunmen shot dead on Wednesday 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 traveling in a car near an Islamabad market, police said. He was the only Christian in the cabinet.

"The initial reports are that there were three men who attacked him. He was probably shot using a Kalashnikov, but we are trying to ascertain what exactly happened," said Islamabad police chief Wajid Durrani. Bullets hit Bhatti's car four or five times through the windshield. Blood covered the back seat.

A hospital spokesman said Bhatti suffered several wounds.

The law has been in the spotlight since last November, when a court sentenced a Christian mother 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.

The latest shooting is likely to deter any attempt to change the law that mandates death for anyone who speaks ill of the Islam's Prophet Mohammad.

Sherry Rehman, a former government minister and member of the ruling Pakistan People's Party, which included Bhatti, tried to change the law last year but was forced to stop her effort by the party leadership in the face of opposition from religious conservatives.

Reuters

(China Daily 03/03/2011 page12)