In a major development linked to the trial of hardcore terrorists in military courts, Islamabad Police referred the murder case of former minority affairs minister Dr Shahbaz Bhatti to a military court on Thursday.
Bhatti, a Catholic who vocally opposed the misuse of blasphemy law, had been gunned down outside his residence in Islamabad in March 2011. His killing had followed the assassination of former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer by a religious fanatic in January 2011, for his firm stand against the misuse of blasphemy law. In the past, the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA) had pointed out that the threats from extremists were adversely affecting the proceedings of the trial of Dr Shahbaz Bhatti murder trial.
Threatening pamphlets claiming to be from the Punjabi Taliban had been found in the office of a key witness in the case. The sectarian killing of Chaudhry Zulfiqar, the prosecutor in Benazir Bhutto’s murder case, has also been moved to the military court, along with a number of other high-profile, terror-related cases, a senior police official of Islamabad Police confirmed to Daily Times on Thursday, on the condition of anonymity. The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar had been killed in Islamabad in 2013 when he was on his way to attend court proceedings of the BB murder case. At the time, police had arrested an alleged al Qaeda activist involved in the killing. Majority of the mainstream parliamentary political parties had reached a consensus over the issue of setting up military courts for tackling terrorism cases in the country recently and 21st Amendment was passed.
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