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.
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 court on Tuesday stayed the implementation of death sentence given to the self-confessed assassin of Governor Salmaan Taseer till it decided his appeal against the verdict.
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.
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.
"As per the investigations, it has been found that Salman Taseer, the Governor of Punjab province, had spoken impolitely and used bad words against his guard (Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri) while driving in his car. The killing of Taseer had nothing to do with the blasphemy laws in Pakistan...but it was the Governor's personal behaviour with his bodyguard that led to his assassination," advocate Akram Sheikh claimed.
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