Pakistani Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti has died after gunmen opened fire on his car in the capital Islamabad

He was traveling to work through a residential district when his vehicle was sprayed with bullets, police said. Bhatti, the cabinet's only Christian minister, had received death threats for urging reform to blasphemy laws. In January, 2011 Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, who had also opposed the law, was shot dead by one of his bodyguards. The blasphemy law carries a death sentence for anyone who insults Islam. Critics say it has been used to persecute minority faiths. Bhatti, 42, a leader of the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP), had just left home in the capital when three or four gunmen surrounded his vehicle and sprayed it with bullets. No group has said it was behind the attack, but pamphlets purporting to have been issued by al-Qaeda and Tehrik-i-Taliban Punjab, a branch of the Taliban in Pakistan's most populous province, were found at the ambush site. The pamphlets warned that anyone who criticized the blasphemy law would be shot. Governor Taseer was shot dead on 4 January, 2011 also in Islamabad, by one of his own police bodyguards. The killer has been feted throughout the country as a hero. The governor had backed a private member's bill in parliament by Sherry Rehman, a female MP, to amend the blasphemy law in an attempt to make miscarriages of justice less likely and remove its death penalty. But in the face of strident popular opposition, the federal government said it would not support the proposed reforms. Pakistan's blasphemy law has been in the spotlight since a Christian, Asia Bibi, was sentenced to hang in November 2011 for insulting the Prophet Muhammad. She denies the charge. The mother-of-five had been picking berries alongside local Muslim women, when a row developed over sharing water. Days later, the women complained that she had made derogatory remarks about the Prophet Muhammad. Critics say that convictions under the law hinge on witness testimony, which is often linked to grudges. About 1.5% of Pakistan's 185 million population is Christian.