ISLAMABAD: Gunmen killed Pakistan’s lead prosecutor investigating the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto as he was driving to court on Friday, throwing the case that also involves former ruler Pervez Musharraf into disarray.

Chaudhry Zulfikar was at the helm of a number of highly controversial cases, including the 2007 Bhutto assassination in which Musharraf is accused of involvement. He was also prosecuting militants linked to the 2008 terror attack in the Indian city of Mumbai.

Zulfikar was on his way to a court in Rawalpindi, next to Islamabad, when gunmen fired at him, hitting him in the head, shoulder and chest, and then fled in a taxi and on a motorcycle, said police officer Arshad Ali. The prosecutor was shot at least 13 times and his car was pockmarked with bullets and the windshield shattered.

He then lost control of his car, which hit a woman passer-by and killed her, said another police officer, Mohammed Rafiq.

Zulfikar’s guard, Farman Ali, returned fire and is believed to have wounded at least one of the attackers, Rafiq said. Ali also was injured in the attack. Police have launched a search to find and apprehend the gunmen.

A motive for the killing was unclear, but Zulfikar’s involvement in the two particularly high-profile cases will likely be scrutinized closely.

Government prosecutors have accused Musharraf of being involved in the Bhutto assassination and not providing enough security to Pakistan’s first female prime minister. Musharraf, who was in power when Bhutto was killed, has denied the allegations. At the time of the attack, he blamed the assassination on the Pakistani Taliban.

The Bhutto case has lingered for years in the Pakistani court system. A number of alleged assailants are on trial but no one has been convicted. The case burst into the headlines when Musharraf returned in March after four years in exile.

The prosecutor told reporters that he had received death threats recently in connection with the case but would not say who from or what they said.

Zulfikar was also the government’s lead prosecutor in a case related to the 2008 terrorist attack on the Indian city of Mumbai that killed 166 people. The attack was blamed on the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Pakistan has put seven men on trial on charges they assisted in the Mumbai siege, but the trial has made little progress. India has criticized Pakistan for not doing more to crack down on the militants blamed for the attack. Hafiz Saeed, the head of a group believed to be a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, remains free, and many believe he enjoys the protection of the government. Lashkar-e-Taiba was founded years ago with the help of Pakistani intelligence to put pressure on India over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Musharraf returned to Pakistan to make a political comeback despite Taliban death threats and a raft of legal cases against him. But his fortunes have gone from bad to worse since he arrived.

Judges barred him from running in the May 11 parliamentary election not long after he arrived because of his actions while in power. A court in the northwestern city of Peshawar went further this week and banned Musharraf from running for public office for the rest of his life — a ruling the former military strongman plans to appeal.

Musharraf is currently under house arrest on the outskirts of Islamabad in connection with several cases against him, including the Bhutto case. He also faces allegations of treason before the Supreme Court.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Militants wearing suicide vests and disguised as policemen attacked the office of a senior political official in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, killing five people, police and hospital officials said.

In Pakistan’s southwest, meanwhile, several thousand Shiite Muslims protested for a second day following a massive bombing targeting the minority sect that killed 84 people. The protesters have refused to bury victims of the attack until authorities take action against the militants who were responsible.

The target of Monday’s attack in the city of Peshawar was the office of the top political official for the Khyber tribal area, a major militant sanctuary in the country. The militants were disguised in the same type of uniform worn by the tribal policemen who protect the compound.

Four militants opened fire on the policemen protecting the compound and managed to get inside, said senior tribal policeman Sajad Hussain. Once inside, three of the attackers detonated their suicide vests, said Hussain. It’s unclear what happened to the fourth attacker.

The bodies of five people killed in the attack have been brought to a local hospital, along with seven others who were wounded, said hospital spokesman Jamil Shah.

The dead included four tribal policemen and one elderly civilian, said police officer Noor Mohammed Khan. The wounded included four tribal policemen and three civilians, he said.

An eyewitness, Shahid Shinwari, said the militants launched the attack when a van carrying prisoners arrived at the office compound. The militants tried to free the prisoners from the van, he said.

The compound is open to members of the public on Mondays, and it was filled with dozens of people who became trapped inside by the attack. Soldiers and police responded to the attack, and the people trapped inside were eventually freed.

Local TV footage showed them walking out of the compound with their hands raised as they were led out of the compound to an area for screening. White smoke from the explosions billowed out of the compound.

In the southwest city of Quetta, over 4,000 men and women staged a protest in an area of the city where a bombing targeting Shiites ripped through a produce market on Saturday. The death toll from the attack rose to 84 on Monday, after three people died from their injuries, said senior police officer Fayaz Saumbal.

Nearly 1,000 others protested in a different part of the city, at the location where a bombing at a billiards hall that also targeted Shiite Muslims killed 86 people in January.

Members of the country’s minority sect have increasingly been targeted by radical Sunni militants who do not consider them to be real Muslims. The most prominent among the attackers has been Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which claimed responsibility for both of the recent bombings in Quetta. Rights groups and members of the Shiite community have accused the government of not doing enough to crack down on the militants.

Many of the attacks have occurred in Baluchistan province, where Quetta is the capital. The province has the largest concentration of Shiites in the country. Many are Hazaras, an ethnic group that migrated from Afghanistan over a century ago.

Azizullah Hazara, the vice chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party, a political group representing Hazaras, threatened Sunday to hold widespread protests unless the government finds those responsible for the most recent attack and arrests them within 48 hours.

Protesters have also demanded the army take over control of Quetta and launch a targeted operation against the militants who have been attacking Shiites.

After the bombing in January that killed 86 people, Shiites camped out in the street for four days alongside the coffins of their loved ones. Eventually the country’s prime minister ordered a shake-up in the regional administration, putting the local governor in charge of the whole province. But the governor has expressed frustration, saying the recent bombing was the result of a failure of the provincial security and intelligence services.

Shiite organizations also protested the attack in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, which is located on the country’s southern coast. Much of the city was shut down as groups complied with a call to hold a strike to demonstrate against the bombing.

QUETTA, Pakistan: The death toll from a horrific bombing that tore through a crowded vegetable market in a mostly Shiite Muslim neighborhood of southwestern Pakistan climbed to 81 with many of the severely wounded dying overnight, a Pakistani police official said Sunday.

Police official Fayyaz Saumbal said 164 people also were wounded by the explosion Saturday in the city of Quetta just as people shopped for produce for their evening meal. The bomb was hidden in a water tank and towed into the market by a tractor, Quetta police chief Zubair Mahmood told reporters.

It was the deadliest incident since bombings targeting Shiites in the same city killed 86 people earlier this year, leading to days of protests that eventually toppled the local government.

Shiites have been increasingly attacked by militant groups who view them as heretics and non-Muslims in the country, which is dominated by Sunni Muslims. Many of the Shiites in Quetta, including those in the neighborhood attacked Saturday, are Hazaras, an ethnic group that migrated to Pakistan from Afghanistan more than a century ago.

The remote-controlled bomb destroyed shops, caused a two-story building to collapse and left a massive crater where it exploded.

Local residents rushed the victims to three different area hospitals, often in private vehicles because there weren’t enough ambulances to transport them.

Angry members of the minority Shiite sect protested in the streets, blocking roads with burning tires and throwing stones at passing vehicles. Some fired into the air in an attempt to keep people away from the area in case of a second explosion. Sometimes insurgents stagger the explosions as a way to target people who rush to the scene to help those killed or wounded in the first, thus increasing the death toll.

On Sunday morning, the city was completely shut down as people observed strike called by theHazara Democratic Party as a way to honor the dead and protest the repeated slaughter of members of their ethnic and religious community.

Bostan Ali, the Quetta chief of the Hazara Democratic Party, said the group is planning another protest in the city similar to one held in January after twin bombings in Quetta killed at least 86 people. During that protest, Hazaras refused to bury their dead for four days, instead protesting in the streets alongside coffins holding their loved ones.

“We will not bury our dead until stringent action is taken against terrorists who are targeting and killing Shiites,” Ali said.

The rally in January sparked similar events across the country and an outpouring of sympathy for Shiites. The prime minister flew to Quetta and after meeting with protesters dismissed the local government.

But Saturday’s massive blast indicated that the militant groups are still capable of targeting Shiites.

The police chief said investigators were not certain who was behind the bombing but a local television station reported that Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni extremist group that has targeted Shiites in the past, had called to claim responsibility.

Most of the Shiites in the area are Hazaras, and they were quick to blame Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

“This evil force is operating with the patronage of certain elements in the province,” said Qayum Changezi, the chairman of a local Hazara organization.

Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan province, the country’s largest but also the one with the smallest population.

The province is facing challenges on many fronts. Baluch nationalist groups are fighting an insurgency there to try to gain a greater share of income from the province’s gas and mineral resources. Islamic militants, like the sectarian group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, are also active in the province. And members of the Afghan Taliban are believed to be hiding in the region.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi took its name after a firebrand Sunni cleric who gave virulently anti-Shiite sermons.

Pakistan’s intelligence agencies helped nurture Sunni militant groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in the 1980s and 1990s to counter a perceived threat from neighboring Iran, which is mostly Shiite. Pakistan banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in 2001, but the group continues to operate fairly freely.

Last year was particularly deadly for Shiites in Pakistan. According to Human Rights Watch, more than 400 were killed in targeted attacks across the country. The human rights group said more than 125 were killed in Baluchistan province, most of whom belonged to the Hazara community.

Rights groups have accused the government of not doing enough to protect Shiites in the country.