Tank, Pakistan - Gunmen have shot dead a former Pakistani parliamentarian near the north-western city of Tank, police say.
Maulana Merajuddin was the head of Maulana Fazlur Rahman's Islamist Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party in tribal areas where the Taliban have a stronghold.
He was shot dead near his home by two men on a motorcycle as he returned from the mosque after pre-dawn prayers.
He was a key figure in the government's talks with tribal elders and militants in the neighbouring Waziristan region.
"Maulana Merajuddin was shot dead at about 6am just a few yards outside his residence in Murtaza village when he was returning from the mosque," Shahab Ali Shah, the administrative head of South Waziristan tribal region, told the BBC.
Peace deal
Maulana Niaz Ali Shah, a local Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam leader, said the incident took place near a paramilitary checkpoint, and at a time when a curfew was in place.
It is not known who was behind the killing, but Maulana Shah said: "I suspect the authorities of having killed him.
"His crime was that he resisted the proposal of the authorities to raise a tribal force against the Taliban," he told the BBC.
Maulana Merajuddin played a key role in helping to broker a peace deal in South Waziristan in 2005 between the government and the Pakistani Taliban.
He was also part of a committee which held negotiations with the founder of Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, in 2007, which led to a ceasefire in South Waziristan.
Maulana Merajuddin's murder has come at a time when the government is trying to persuade tens of thousands of people who left the Mehsud areas of South Waziristan ahead of a military operation to return home.
Sources say the government has also been urging tribal leaders to raise a local force against the Pakistan Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud's group.