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ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (ANS) -- Police in Pakistan have arrested a man suspected of involvement in the killing of former federal minister for minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, who was shot dead in March, local media reports said, according to an Italian news site. 

The Adnkronos International (AKI) website -- www.adnkronos.com/IGN/Aki/English/Religion -- says Pakistani police are interrogating the suspect, who was traced through his cell phone, the Express Tribune daily newspaper said on Thursday.

According to the website, police on June 19 arrested the suspect, Hafiz Nazar Muhammad, who is believed to have worked with Bhatti, a Pakistani Christian, for the past 10 years. The police said they wanted to interrogate him about his accomplices.

It is believed Nazar had phoned a minorities' lawmaker from Sargohda Tahir Nazeer Chaudhry and claimed he knew Bhatti's assassins, according to investigators.

The website reports that Nazar pretended to be a Christian pastor and had a personal grudge against the minister, the Express Tribune quoted unnamed police sources as saying.

However, no witnesses or evidence has yet been presented to prove that Nazar was involved in the killing, the sources add.

Bhatti, the only Christian in the federal cabinet, was killed in Islamabad on March 2 by three unidentified gunmen.

The killers, reportedly belonging to the Pakistani Taliban, left a note stating they had killed Bhatti for raising his voice against the blasphemy laws.

The news site reports Bhatti told AKI on January 11 that Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws must be reformed. His comments came the same day an anti-terrorism court in the central Pakistani town of Muzaffargarh said it had jailed two Muslim men for life on blasphemy charges.

Last November, Asia Bibi, a Christian mother-of-five in eastern Punjab province, was sentenced to death under the blasphemy laws, prompting an appeal from Pope Benedict XVI for the woman to be spared.

AKI states that no one in Pakistan has yet been executed under the blasphemy laws. But the legislation has exposed deep divisions between liberals and increasingly powerful conservatives in the Muslim country.
Opponents of the blasphemy law say it is used to settle personal scores and disputes between sects and encourages Islamist extremism.

AKI adds that before his murder, Bhatti had voiced his fears that he believed he would be "the next target" following the assassination of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer in early January for speaking out against the blasphemy law.