A Pakistani TV news channel on Saturday aired photographs of two men it said were involved in the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto after an election rally in Rawalpindi on Thursday.

One of the two grainy photos — which Dawn News channel said were clicked by an amateur photographer — showed a youth wearing sunglasses aiming a pistol at Bhutto's back while she waved through the sun-roof of her bulletproof vehicle to her supporters.

The other picture, apparently taken before the shooting, showed the same youth standing next to another man who had a white cloth wrapped around his face. Dawn News described the second man as the “suspected suicide bomber”.The position of the youth with the pistol in the photo coincided with the position of the shooter seen in video footage of the attack on Bhutto released by the interior ministry on Friday. In that footage, the face of the shooter is obscured but his hand can be seen holding a pistol that is used to fire three to four shots towards Bhutto. In the video too, Bhutto had her back towards the shooter.