Pakistani religion minister shot

[I-G]

Page last updated at 11:58 GMT, Wednesday, 2 September 2009 12:58 UK


Pakistani religion minister shot


Pakistan's minister for religious affairs has been wounded and his driver killed in a gun attack in Islamabad.

The minister, Hamid Saeed Kazmi, was hit in the leg when two gunmen shot into his car as he left work.

Another passenger in the vehicle believed to be a security guard was also injured, police say.

The attackers escaped on a motorbike. It is not clear who carried out the attack. Mr Kazmi has been an outspoken critic of the Taliban.

The security forces in Islamabad have been put on high alert.

'State of shock'

Television footage showed Mr Kazmi being taken away in an ambulance. There were blood stains on the car's seats and its windows were shattered.

"Gunmen sprayed bullets on the minister's car," a police officer told Reuters news agency.

Senior medical official Shaukat Hameed Kiani said Mr Kazmi's leg had been fractured by a bullet.

"His condition is stable, but he is in a state of shock," he said.

Shazia Nazir, a doctor at the hospital treating Mr Kazmi, told the AFP news agency that the minister's driver had been brought in dead, with a bullet wound to the head, and that a security guard had been seriously wounded.

Health Minister Aijaz Jhakrani has denied there were any lapses in security, saying the incident was "a targeted attack", AFP reported.

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says Mr Kazmi has been involved in the Pakistani government's controversial drive to reform religious schools in the country.

He has been working with leading clerics to issue a fatwa, declaring suicide bombing un-Islamic.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Pakistani religion minister shot

 

[musalman]

Shot few meters from Islamabad's main police station and no one came out. There is something fishy

 

[natarajan]

yes,may be he might have tried to be secular

 

[Rage]

Fishy indeed.... especially when you consider the possibility of official involvement:


Informant in ministry aided assailants, says Malik

By Mohammad Asghar and Munawer Azeem
Friday, 04 Sep, 2009 | 04:23 AM PST |

Federal Minister for Interior Senator Rehman Malik enquires
about the health of Federal Minister for Religious Affairs
Hamid Saeed Kazmi who was injured in an assassination
attempt in Islamabad.—ONLINE.


ISLAMABAD: Police investigators are looking at all possible links to Wednesday’s gun attack on Religious Affairs Minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi in which he was injured and his driver killed.

So far four prime suspects have been taken into custody and the investigators are trying to trace the facilitator who, they believe, was in Islamabad at the time of the attack.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that there was someone in the religious affairs ministry who was providing information about the movement of the minister to the attackers.

Talking to reporters after visiting Mr Kazmi in the Federal Government Services Hospital, he said the minister’s security guards and some officials of the ministry were also being interrogated.

He said the facts so far available with the investigation team showed the minister was the target. He said two pistols and one Kalashnikov had been recovered from the scene.

Mr Malik said the government would provide bullet-proof vehicles to federal ministers in future. ‘There are a few official bullet-proof vehicles that have been given to ministers. I am also using my own private vehicle.’

Deputy Inspector General Banni Amin, who is leading the investigation, said that police were working on all possibilities and would soon solve the case.

Other members of the investigation team are: Kamran Adil of CID, SP City Circle Sajid Kiani, SP Investigation Saqib Sultan, ASP City Circle Muntazir Madhi, CIA DSP Bashir Ahmad Noon and Abapara police station SHO Inspector Abdul Majeed.

Mohammad Ashraf Sialvi, the only head constable deployed with the minister, was also badly injured in the attack.

He was being treated in the Federal Government Services Hospital and is stated to be in critical condition. He was kept in the ICU ward.

The investigators visited the crime scene late on Wednesday night and collected evidence. They believe that there were three attackers.

The two riding a bike opened fire on the minister’s car while the third kept watching them from across the road.

He was seen roaming the premises of the religious affairs ministry and asking something of its staff before the attack.

A contingent of police was deployed in and around the FGSH where the minister was getting medical treatment.

Orthopaedic Surgeon Dr Altaf Hussain Shah said the minister was brought with fractures of the shin bone in three different places and it was smashed.


DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Informant in ministry aided assailants, says Malik