Karachi, July 22:

Gunmen shot and killed a bodyguard of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in the Pakistani city of Karachi today, police and a party official said.

Ijaz Durrani, a spokesman for Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party, said unidentified gunmen opened fire on Khalid Shahenshah’s vehicle outside his home in the southern city.

Doctors at a nearby hospital were unable to save him, Durrani said. Karachi police chief Khalid Mahmood confirmed the incident and death.

He said police had opened an investigation and didn’t know the motive.

Shahenshah, a longtime party activist, was among a coterie of party security guards who failed to prevent the assassination of Bhutto in a gun and bomb attack near Islamabad on December 27. He has also been involved in providing security for Bhutto’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari.