KARACHI The Pakistan Peoples Party co-chairman Asif Zardari has condemned the killing of Khalid Shahenshah, top security guard for former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Unidentified gunmen on motorcycles shot dead Shahenshah in Karachi on Tuesday, police and officials said.

Khalid Shahenshah, 45, who was Bhutto`s personal security guard in Pakistan and had been a guard at Bilawal

house, her family`s Karachi home since her death, was coming out of his house in the city when the gunmen opened fire.

`He had four bullets in his body and was shifted to a hospital where he died,` Aijaz Durrani, the custodian of Bilawal house in Karachi.

Mohammad Ashraf, a local police official, said the assailants were on motorcycles and escaped after the attack.

`It is a cowardly act of terrorism,` said Waqar Mehdi, a minister in the government of southern Sindh.

`We don`t know so far who is behind this but we are investigating.`

Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfikar Mirza has Tuesday described the assassination of Khalid Shahenshah, a PPP leader and Security Officer of Bilawal House target killing.

Talking to media at Jinnah Hospital where body of the deceased was taken for post-mortem, the home minister, however, said that an inquiry committee has been formed to investigate the killing of Khalid who received four bullets.

Dr Zulfikar said that conspiracies are being hatched against PPP and murder of Khalid is a conspiracy to destabilise the government.

Replying to a question, he said it would be premature to say that Khalid was killed for being a witness in Benazir Bhutto`s assassination case.

He said the accused were riding a white colour car when they intercepted Khalid in Clifton area and gunned him down.

Meanwhile Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has expressed grief over the killing of Khalid Shahenshah and ordered IG police to investigate the matter and bring tghe culprits to book at the earliest.

Bhutto was killed in a suicide attack at an election rally in the northern garrison city of Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007.