ISLAMABAD -- Unidentified gunmen Wednesday killed a former chief minister of Punjab, Ghulam Hyder Wyne, sparking fears of widespread electoral violence, spokesmen for the victim's Muslim League Party said.
Party officials in Islamabad and Lahore issued a written statement saying that two gunmen wielding AK-47 assault rifles ambushed Wyne's vehicle near Tanabba, a village 155 miles (500 km) south of Islamabad, during a stop on his campaign for the National Assembly against Aslam Bodla of the People's Party.
An official statement issued in Islamabad Wednsday evening said a notorious gang of outlaws was responsible for the assassination.
According to the official statement, Punjab police had killed the gang's leader, identified as Jehangir Maluka, during a clash that occurred when Wyne was chief minister of Punjab.
The gang held Wyne responsible for Maluka's death and pledged to kill him, officials said.
Wednesday morning, while Wyne was campaigning in the area, four gunmen of Maluka's biradari, or caste, ambushed his car and killed him, the officials said.
A police spokesman in Lahore, the provincial capital of Punjab, said police arested two of the four alleged assasins and confiscated their weapons.
Authorities did not release the names of the suspects but said the two, both in their late 20s, belong to the Maluka caste.
'The gunmen had come for wyne only. They waited to confirm his death after shooting him and then fled,' said the spokesman.
Wyne was accompanied by two bodyguards. The Muslim League said the bodyguards were also killed, but the police spokesman said Wyne's was the only death.
The government statement issued in Islamabad said police had cordoned off the entire area to search for other members of Maluka's gang.
Caretaker Prime Minsiter Moeen Qureshi ordered the 'immediate arrest of all those responsible' and said, 'The case should be heard by a court of summary trial for speedy justice.'
He urged the rival parties of the Muslim League and the People's Party to 'show restraint and avoid any move which could lead to further violence.'
Thousands of people turned out in the streets of Wyne's ancestral town of Mian Chunnu, closing shops and other work places. Police reported the crowd was peaceful, adding that People's Party workers had removed flags and sign boards from the election offices as a precaution to prevent reprisals.
The shooting came a day after three people were killed in a clash near Toba Tek Singh near Lahore between the supporters of the People's Party, headed by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and the Muslim League, headed by former Prime Minister and chief Bhutto rival Nawaz Sharif.
The two parties are vying in October to achieve a majority in the Parliament, which will then select either Bhutto or Sharif as prime minister.
'The murder is a conspiracy to get the elections postponed,' said Sharif, but he urged the government not to capitulate to violence.
Bhutto said the killing underscored the need for the government to upgrade current protections for politicials in the wake of increased violence in the past month.
The government has already assigned police commando teams to protect Bhutto and Sharif.
So far, 50 people have died in the past month in what officials say is election-related violence aimed at campaign workers and major leaders, including the shooting Tuesday of a Bhutto worker in the southern town of Shujaabad.
The caretaker prime minister has said, 'Some internal and external forces, who want the elections to be postponed, are behind these murders.' But Qureshi has pledged to hold the election on time 'come what may.'
Wyne served as chief minister of Pakistan's largest province from 1990 to 1993 and was a close aid to Sharif, running Sharif's campaign in Punjab -- a key political battleground since it is where more than half of Pakistan's nearly 122 million citizens live.
