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.
'There's no going back on this protest till the CAA is repealed and the government assures of dropping the NRC proposal'
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
"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.
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.
On Monday, the Delhi government said gatherings with more than 50 people were not allowed in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The size of gatherings has since been reduce to 20 people.
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.
He was, however, overpowered by other protestors and taken away from the site.
The article is in stark contrast to the TIME cover story done on Modi earlier this month titled 'India's Divider in Chief', written by Aatish Taseer, son of Indian journalist Tavleen Singh and late Pakistani politician and businessman Salmaan Taseer.
Senior police officer Aizaz Ghoraya confirmed that security and intelligence officials recovered Shahbaz from the Kuchlak area on the outskirts of Quetta city.
By sacrificing an important component of the right to free speech, we have strengthened the hands of the fundamentalists, the bigots and the publicity-seeking goondas. And of the hate-filled political establishment, points out Vir Sanghvi.
Lahore-based author Bilal Tanweer has won the 2014 Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize for his novel The Scatter Here Is Too Great.
'I criticise the interference of the army in politics.' 'But the people know I am not anti-Pakistan.' 'Public support is my biggest strength.'
The Supreme Court overturned the conviction, a landmark verdict on Wednesday that sparked nationwide protests, death threats from hardline groups.
Seema, a Shaheen Bagh local, said instead of asking the protesters to end their sit-in, the governments in Delhi and at the Centre should have sent them face masks and hand santisers. Kaneez Fatima, who claims to be a regular at the site since Day 1, said if the government was so concerned about safety and well being, it should withdraw the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act, adding that 'we will call off the protest immediately'.
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.
'On both sides of our cultural divide, it roused strong emotions that had very little to do with the language and its literature.' 'I felt Sanskrit had been removed from the realm of thought, and made an object of politics and piety, of oppression, of reverence and contempt.' 'It was my aim to avoid these things, and go straight to the language which, as an object for the mind, is among the most exquisite ever made.'
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.
The development came two days after Home Minister Amit Shah said at Times Now Summit that anyone having doubts over CAA could seek an appointment from his office and he would be willing to meet the person(s) within three days. Meanwhile, Ministry of Home Affairs sources said that no such meeting is scheduled for Sunday.
Awais Ali Shah, a lawyer himself, was abducted last month from Karachi. He was found in Tank.
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.
'PM Modi, please come to Shaheen Bagh, collect your gift and talk to us'
Hard-line clerics are now turning their anger toward another leading member of the ruling Pakistan People's Party, Sherry Rehman, who, like Taseer, called for changes aimed at reforming the blasphemy law after a Pakistani Christian woman accused of insulting the prophet Muhammad was given the death penalty.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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