Prosecutor investigating assassination of former Pakistani PM shot dead

Prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfikar was shot in his car after he left home and headed to a hearing in the case, according to media reports that say twelve bullets were fired.

 Zulfikar was also the prosecutor investigating the 2008 attacks on India's commercial capital, Mumbai, in which 166 people were killed. India said militants based in Pakistan were behind the three-day rampage.

The attack on Zulfikar left glass and blood stains on the front seats of his car.

Security expert Amir Rana said Zulfikar was probably a marked man because he had been prosecuting militants who were jailed in connection with Bhutto's death, or other cases.

Bhutto's assassination is shrouded in mystery.

She was killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack carried out by a 15-year-old boy after an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi, weeks after she returned to Pakistan from years in self-imposed exile.

A report by a U.N. commission of inquiry released in 2010 said any credible investigation should not rule out the possibility that members of Pakistan's military and security establishment were involved.

Bhutto was a fierce critic of Pakistan's Taliban and Islamist groups that had been patronised by elements of Pakistan's military. She was deeply mistrusted by the security establishment.

Speculation has lingered that Bhutto was the victim of a plot by allies of General Pervez Musharraf, the president at the time, who did not want her to come to power.

The killing of the prosecutor comes days after a Pakistani court put Musharraf on a 14-day judicial remand for charges of failing to provide adequate security for Bhutto before her assassination.