ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad police moved the murder case of Pakistan's former minority affairs minister Shahbaz Bhatti to a military court on Thursday.

Bhatti, a Catholic who vocally opposed the blasphemy law, had been gunned down outside his residence in Islamabad in March 2011. His killing had followed after the high-profile murder of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, who had also been killed for demanding the blasphemy law be reformed.

In the past, the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA) had pointed out that extremist threats had hampered the Bhatti murder trial. Threatening pamphlets claiming to be from the Punjabi Taliban had been found in the office of a key witness in the case, APMA had reported.

The murder case of Chaudhry Zulfiqar, the prosecutor in Benazir Bhutto's murder case was also moved to the military court, along with a number of other high-profile, terror-related cases the IG Islamabad confirmed.

Zulfiqar had been killed in Islamabad in 2013 when he was on his way to attend court proceedings of the BB murder case. At the time, police had arrested an alleged al Qaeda activist involved in the killing.

All political parties had reached a consensus over the issue of setting up military courts for tackling terrorism cases in the country. Their decision came in the wake of the Taliban attack on the Army Public School Peshawar that claimed over 130 lives.

Parliament passed the 21st Constitutional Amendment and The Pakistan Army Amendment Bill 2015 unopposed after 247 members of the National Assembly and 78 members of the Senate voted in favour of the laws meant to set up constitutionally protected military courts to try civilian suspects of terrorism.