Gwen Shlam's Blog: Anger at Shahbaz Bhatti funeral

Pakistani prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani leads mourners but few believe he can bring Christian minister's killers to justice

The flag-draped coffin holding the bullet-pocked body of Shahbaz Bhatti lurched violently as anguished mourners shouldered it from the Catholic church in Islamabad, chanting angry slogans.

"How many Bhattis will they kill?" they shouted, in a twist on a slogan usually reserved for the Bhutto clan. "A Bhatti will rise from every household," came the reply.

Bishop Andrew Francis watched from the church door. In life Bhatti, Pakistan's minister for minorities, promoted dialogue between faiths, he said. But in death that sense of tolerance had evaporated. "At the moment, it's zero," Bishop Francis said.

The prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, led mourners at a tightly guarded funeral service for Bhatti on Friday , a few miles from the street where he was shot by Taliban assassins.

Bhatti's death was a black day for Pakistan, Gilani said, promising that his government would "do the utmost to bring the culprits to justice".

Few Christians believe that will happen, and reminders of the fragile security situation surrounded the funeral. Police sealed off the church as ministers and diplomats arrived in armoured, black-tinted vehicles, watched by police snipers on nearby rooftops. Inside bulky suited bodyguards wearing earpieces and carrying weapons watched over the congregation.

The security contrasted with the lax protection afforded to Bhatti, 42, Pakistan's only Christian minister, who was alone with his driver when the killers struck. The interior minister, Rehman Malik, on Thursday said Bhatti was partly responsible for his own death because he had failed to ask for a police escort. "I think it was his mistake," he said. "It was his own decision."

But other top officials have admitted that Bhatti, the recipient of numerous death threats, had requested a bulletproof car and more secure house; the Express Tribune newspaper reported that two cabinet ministers had threatened to quit in protest at his death.

The killing comes almost two months after the Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer was gunned down in Islamabad. Taseer also espoused changes to Pakistan's blasphemy laws, which are used to discriminate against minorities. In the weeks after Taseer's death, lawyers flung rose petals on his killer, Mumtaz Qadri, and celebrated him at street rallies. Now Pakistan's Christian community, estimated to number three million, is scrambling to reassess its position in society.

The presence of Gilani at the funeral was a sign of "profound hope", said Bishop Francis. "It means that God never fails his promises, and will never fail us."

Outside church, Christians were worried. "We have been orphaned," said Sunila Javaid, a teacher from Lahore. "Who will raise our voice now?"

One man pointed out that the two-minute silence in parliament for Bhatti days earlier had been a compromise, because no politician dared lead a prayer for a man killed on account of blasphemy.

Javaid said the law against blasphemy, which is punishable by death, had become a psychological sword hanging over Pakistan's minorities. "You have to be careful what you think, what you say, who is listening. It's like Big Brother over your shoulder," she said.

The government has all but abandoned any reform. Bowing to pressure from conservative religious groups ? and perhaps fearful for their lives ? senior ministers say that they will not touch the law.

They are also grappling with economic crisis and resurgent militancy. As Gilani spoke in Islamabad a bomb ripped through a Sufi shrine at Nowshera, 70 miles to the west, killing at least eight people and injuring 30.

After the ceremony in Islamabad a helicopter flew Bhatti's body to his home village in central Punjab, where thousands of mourners waited for a burial tinged with palpable anger.

Women with black flags called for Bhatti's assassins to be caught and hanged. "Bhatti, your blood will bring revolution," shouted mourners as his body was taken to the burial site in an ambulance.

"These terrorists must be hanged publicly to stop them from committing such brutal crimes," Hina Gill, a member of the Christian Minority Alliance, told Reuters. "These terrorists are wearing the mask of religion to defame religion."

Finally, Bhatti's body was lowered into a grave. The softly spoken politician's message, a priest said by the grave, had been "to purge Pakistan of killers and hatred". With his death there are fewer signs that message is being heard.

Declan Walsh

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