Pakistan PM forms high-level committee to decide on national team's participation in ODI World Cup
PCB acting chairman Zaka Ashraf will push for the country's ODI World Cup matches at neutral venues at the ICC meetings in Durban this week.
Also, an instance of a politician from the desert state allegedly donating about Rs 2 lakh to the organisation is under the radar of agencies probing the case.
The case is likely to be handed over to the NIA for probe after registration of a case under the stringent anti-terror law Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
"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.
It is un-Muslim to be a liberal -- that is the message that Qadri and those behind him in the conspiracy (if there was a larger conspiracy) have sought to convey through the assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, says B Raman.
Shah also said that such murders have taken place in Pakistan too, mentioning the violent deaths of politician Salman Taseer and rights activist Sabeen Mehmood.
Pakistani religious parties have offered blood money to the family of slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer to pardon his killer.
Imran Khan on Sunday announced that his party will resume the march to Islamabad from the same spot where he survived an assassination attempt but sustained bullet injuries during a rally in Punjab province, saying he prefers 'death instead of living the life of a slave'.
Khan said he was hit by four bullets on his right leg during the assassination attempt.
Pakistani police have questioned the stepmother and a stepbrother of kidnapped son of slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer over their alleged "property dispute" and now believe that religious fundamentalists could be behind the abduction.
Salman Taseer, the slain governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, has been posthumously conferred with one of the country's highest civilian honours, months after he was gunned down by an extremist police guard for favouring amendment to the controversial blasphemy law.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardrai on Tuesday appointed his close aide Muhammad Latif Khosa as the new Governor of Punjab province to succeed the slain Pakistan Peoples Party leader Salman Taseer.
Speaking against Pakistan's controversial blasphemy law has proved costly for another senior lawmaker. Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti was shot dead by three militants in Islamabad on Wednesday. His death comes a little over a month after Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was assassinated by his own bodyguard for opposing the law. Bhatti was the only Christian minister in the Federal Cabinet.The killing highlights the poor law and order situation in Islamabad.
Pakistani police is probing the possibility of supporters of slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer's assassin being behind the kidnapping of his son as part of leads into the case, but are yet to make any headway.
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.
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan's 1986 essay, centred on a case of perceived insult to the Prophet Muhammed and the violent Muslim response to it, bears immediate relevance to the issues being hotly debated today with regard to the anti-blasphemy law in Pakistan, says Yoginder Sikand
Bilawal Bhutto, son of the former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto, has blasted those who have come out in support of the killer of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer and vowed to wage a "jihad" against fundamentalists.
Hamid Mir, once a friend, once an enemy of the assassinated Punjab Governor, pays tribute and also speaks of the challenges that now face Pakistan.
By his death, Salman Taseer has joined a growing list of liberal leaders in Pakistan who have been killed because they were against the radical Islamisation of their country.
In scathing remarks, Taseer told Lahore Commissioner Khusro Pervez that he had "no knowledge of what is going on the world". Hours after groups of terrorists attacked three security facilities in Lahore on Thursday, Pervez had claimed that India's Research and Analysis Wing agency was behind the attacks.
Police in Pakistan have busted an illegal telephone gateway exchange in Lahore, allegedly being operated by the Taliban to make ransom calls to families of persons kidnapped by them, including the sons of former premier Yusuf Raza Gilani and slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer.
Governor of the Punjab province Salman Taseer has asked Pakistan president Asif Zardari to direct the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to boycott its 2011 World Cup matches in India. A powerful political figure and an influential businessman, Taseer has sent a letter to Zardari asking him to direct the PCB to shun its World Cup matches in India.
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.
Zardari was confident that Sharif would not dare to come on the roads himself. The Pakistan government repeatedly informed Sharif about the threat of 'suicide bombers', but Sharif was undeterred.
"The day is not far off when someone like Salman Taseer will be in the Presidency. The PPP will soon appoint the next President," Zardari said addressing a gathering of PPP workers at the Governor's House in Lahore on Monday night.
Learning perhaps from the Kargil debacle, Musharraf tried hard to evolve as a statesman in his dealings with India, recalls Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W.
Asia Bibi was convicted in 2010 after being accused of insulting Islam in a row with her neighbours. She always maintained her innocence, but has spent most of the past eight years in solitary confinement.
'That would be ridiculous and uncharacteristic of the PM.' 'It is also not how things happen in illiberal States.' 'In such places, lower-level functionaries of every rank and hue seek to ingratiate themselves with the highest authority by going pell-mell after dissenters and outsiders,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
'Denying access to the country to writers of both foreign and Indian origin casts a chill on public discourse; it flies in the face of India's traditions of free and open debate and respect for a diversity of views, and weakens its credentials as a strong and thriving democracy'
Senior police officer Aizaz Ghoraya confirmed that security and intelligence officials recovered Shahbaz from the Kuchlak area on the outskirts of Quetta city.
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.
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.
Haider's release was the second successful instance of a dramatic rescue in a high-profile kidnapping case after slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer's son Shahbaz, who was abducted in 2011, was found in March after spending nearly five years in captivity.
The Supreme Court overturned the conviction, a landmark verdict on Wednesday that sparked nationwide protests, death threats from hardline groups.
Embattled former Pakistani dictator General Pervez Musharraf on Friday failed to appear before a special court for his indictment in the high treason trial citing security concerns.
Awais Ali Shah, a lawyer himself, was abducted last month from Karachi. He was found in Tank.
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.
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.
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