Pakistan on Monday executed former police commando Mumtaz Qadri, who brutally assassinated former liberal Punjab governor Salman Taseer for seeking reforms in the country's controversial blasphemy laws, triggering nation-wide protests by Islamists who called it a "black day".
While a police official said that over 15,000 people were present inside the sprawling ground in the garrison city, private estimate put the number of those attending the funeral nearly 1,00,000.
Former Pakistani military dictator and president Pervez Mushrarraf has said that the killer of Punjab governor Salmaan Tasser should be punished and not allowed to challenge the writ of the state, but pledged support for the controversial blasphemy law.
The police guard who gunned down Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was assigned to protect key personalities, including Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani. Self-confessed killer Mumtaz Qadri was detailed on protection duties on as many as 509 occasions in the past three years, including for United States delegations, which are prime targets for terrorists.
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.
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prosecutor who was pursuing the case against the police guard who assassinated Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, has withdrawn from the case, citing security concerns.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.
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.
Praising commando of Pakistan's Elite force Mumtaz Qadri for assassinating Punjab Governor Salaam Taseer, the Taliban warned that all those who opposed the blasphemy law would meet a similar fate.
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.
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.
About 25,000 protesters on Sunday, a month after Qadri was hanged for shooting Taseer, prayed for him in Rawalpindi, and then marched towards Islamabad's Red Zone, breaking barriers that had been erected.
Over 25,000 protesters had entered and besieged Islamabad's high-security zone on Sunday, damaging public buildings and breaking barriers that had been erected.
Pakistani religious parties have offered blood money to the family of slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer to pardon his killer.
Senior police officer Aizaz Ghoraya confirmed that security and intelligence officials recovered Shahbaz from the Kuchlak area on the outskirts of Quetta city.
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.
The Jamatul Ahrar, a splinter group of the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that it was carried out to avenge the hanging of Mumtaz Qadri, killer of Taseer.
Pakistan's former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Sunday said he had spoken to his son Ali Haider for the first time since he was kidnapped by a Taliban group in 2013 and is now being held in Afghanistan.
Ali Haider Gilani, son of ex-premier Gilani, has been recovered from Afghanistan's Ghazni province, Pakistan's Foreign Office said in a statement.
Khadim Hussain Rizvi is now gone. But the mass appeal of fundamentalism among Pakistan's burgeoning, young, illiterate, unemployed and angry population isn't, observes Shekhar Gupta.
If the parliamentary representation of radical Islamic parties goes up dramatically in 2018, what will this do to Pakistan's army?
'The army has been open about its determination to keep the PML-Nawaz out of power at all costs.' 'Both the military and the higher judiciary have indicated a preference for Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik e Insaaf,' says Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan Desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
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