Pakistan's Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, an outspoken leader of the ruling Pakistan People's Party, was on Tuesday assassinated by one of his security guards in a gun attack at a market in the heart of Islamabad. Taseer was getting into his car at Kohsar Market in Islamabad's posh Sector F6/3 area when the guard from the elite force of Punjab police shot him with an automatic weapon at a close range. He was rushed to the Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.
Pakistani investigators on Wednesday probed the possibility of a larger conspiracy behind the killing of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer by his bodyguard as they arrested 23 people.
An anti-terrorism court has refused to issue arrest warrants for two clerics whose fiery speeches reportedly incited the police guard who gunned down Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer for criticising Pakistan's controversial blasphemy law. Investigators probing the governor's assassination had submitted an application to Rawalpindi-based anti-terrorism court Judge Malik Mohammad Akram Awan, seeking warrants for the arrest of the unnamed clerics.
Slain Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, Oscar-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy and Interior Minister Rehman Malik were among those who were awarded the country's highest honour on Pakistan Day on Friday. Taseer, who was gunned down by a policeman last year for his calls for reforming the controversial blasphemy law, was awarded the Nishan-i-Imtiaz, Pakistan's highest civilian award. The award was received by his widow Aamna Taseer.
A total of 22 people, including many policemen, have been arrested by Pakistani authorities over the killing of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, amid reports that a top official had warned about the extremist leanings of the assassin of the outspoken Pakistan Peoples Party leader.
Pakistani police have arrested four suspects in connection with the kidnapping of Shahbaz Taseer, son of slain Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, police officials said on Saturday.
The tragic assassination of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer has "underscored the imperative need for Pakistani society to marginalise and eliminate extremist tendencies," Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Thursday.
A Pakistani policeman attached to Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani's security detail has been detained along with an official of the country's electronic media watchdog in connection with Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer's assassination, while investigators are looking for a cleric who motivated the killer. Mumtaz Qadri, the Elite Force guard gunned down 66-year-old Taseer in Islamabad on Tuesday for opposing the controversial blasphemy law.
Suspicion has grown over whether the Pakistani policeman who assassinated Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer acted on his own or was assisted in the act following emergence of a raft of evidence that he had been declared unfit for guarding VIPs because of his extremist leanings.
The Pakistani judge who gave the death sentence to Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer's self-confessed assassin has sought refuge in Saudi Arabia with his family after receiving death threats from religious extremists.
A Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Saturday handed down death sentence to the police guard who assassinated Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer for calling for changes in the country's controversial blasphemy law.
Abductors of the son of slain Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer and American aid worker Warren Weinstein are not militants, but organised extortion gangs who might have sold them to bigger bidders, Pakistani law enforcement agencies fear.
Shahbaz Taseer, the son of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer who was killed for opposing Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws, was today abducted by four gunmen near his office in Lahore.
Muhammad Afzal Chishti, who is secretary general of the 'ulema' or clerics wing of the ruling Pakistan People's Party, had been hiding in different places over the past seven months due to the threats he began receiving shortly after he led Taseer's 'namaz-e-janaza' in Lahore on January 5.
Saiful Malook, the Pakistani prosecutor who was pursuing the case against the police guard who assassinated Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, has withdrawn from the case, citing security concerns. Mumtaz Qadri shot dead Taseer on January 4 in the heart of the capital because he was angered by the governor's campaign to free a Christian woman sentenced to death under the draconian blasphemy law.
In an interview to Council of Foreign Relations website, Stephen P. Cohen, a leading expert on Pakistan, talks about the ongoing political crisis, Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer's assassination, growing sense of insecurity in Pakistan, importance of China and more.
Amid chaos and high-drama, the a ssassin of the outspoken Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer was on Thursday remanded in a five-day police custody by a Pakistani anti-terrorism court, where his supporters greeted him with rose petals.
A Pakistani Taliban faction linked to terrorist Qari Hussain on Thursday claimed responsibility for the assassination of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, saying the 'man who killed him was from among us'."We claim responsibility for the killing of Salmaan Taseer. The Punjab governor was our target and we have planned this programme and the man who killed him was from among us," said Shakirullah Shakir, a spokesman for the Fidayeen group associated with Qari Hussain.
The Pakistani police on Wednesday charged the policeman who assassinated Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer with murder and terrorism even as he appeared to be unrepentant for his actions. Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, the Elite Force personnel who gunned down Taseer in a market in Islamabad on Tuesday, was booked under the Pakistan Penal Code and the Anti-Terrorism Act. Qadri was presented before Judicial Magistrate Malik Naeem Shaukat, who granted transit custody to police.
A group of over 500 Pakistani scholars and clerics have described the policeman who gunned down Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer as a Ghazi (an Islamic warrior) and have warned against any expression of sympathy for the slain Pakistan People's Party leader, saying it would tantamount to an act of blasphemy.
A stalwart and outspoken politician and a business tycoon, Pakistan's Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer assassinated by one of his security guards in a gun attack at a market in Islamabad on Tuesday, donned many roles in his career that expanded over four decades. In his hey days he was an icon of youth politics in Pakistan and was know for his proximity with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his daughter Benazir. But among all of this, not many are aware of Taseer's Indian connection.
A Pakistani police guard said he had no regrets for gunning down Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, calling him an "apostate", as an anti-terrorism court indicted him for the assassination. Mumtaz Qadri, 26, who has already admitted gunning down Taseer outside a restaurant in Islamabad on January 4, was indicted on a murder charge during in-camera proceedings at Adiala Jail in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, his lawyers said.
Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday said his government will not amend the blasphemy law, which has been at the centre of a raging controversy since the assassination of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer over his opposition to the statute.
A Pakistani court has sentenced an imam and his son to life imprisonment after convicting them on controversial blasphemy charges after they removed a poster containing Quranic verses, officials said.
The assassin of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer confessed in a Pakistani court that he had acted alone in killing the politician and that he he had been planning the attack before being deployed to guard him.
Pakistani authorities enhanced security for Asia Bibi, the Christian woman who triggered a blasphemy furore in the country and in whose defence Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer lost his life, following reports of a threat to her life. The government of Punjab government beefed up security for 45-year-old Asia Bibi in Sheikhupura jail, where she is currently on death row, officials said.
"This is an individual who had worked hard to promote tolerance, and his loss is a great one for Pakistan," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, said.
Nearly two months after Shahbaz Taseer, the son of slain Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer was kidnapped, Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Monday said he was alive and was being held near the border with Afghanistan.
I was flogged about 500 in 3 days, they cut my back with blades and removed nails from my hands and feet," said Shahbaz Taseer of the ordeal he endured.
'If the bulk of the Pakistan population and the all powerful army are now against radical elements, there is indeed hope that Pakistan's India policy will be more realistic and less ideology driven,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
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