Roses for governor’s alleged assassin

LAWYERS showered the suspected killer of a prominent Pakistani governor with rose petals when he arrived at court yesterday and an influential Muslim scholars group praised the assassination of the outspoken opponent of laws that order death for those who insult Islam.

Mumtaz Qadri, 26, made his first appearance in an Islamabad court, where a judge remanded him in custody a day after he allegedly sprayed gunfire at the back of Punjab province Governor Salman Taseer while he was supposed to be protecting him as a bodyguard.

A rowdy crowd slapped him on the back and kissed his cheek as he was escorted inside. The lawyers who tossed handfuls of rose petals over him were not involved in the case.

As he left the court, a crowd of about 200 sympathisers chanted “death is acceptable for Muhammad’s slave”.

The suspect stood at the back door of an armoured police van with a flower necklace given to him by an admirer and repeatedly yelled “God is great”.

More than 500 clerics and scholars from the group Jamaat Ahle Sunnat said no one should pray or express regret for the killing of Taseer. The group representing Pakistan’s majority Barelvi sect, which follows a brand of Islam considered moderate, also issued a veiled threat to other opponents of the blasphemy laws.

“The supporter is as equally guilty as one who committed blasphemy,” the group warned in a statement, adding politicians, the media and others should learn “a lesson from the exemplary death”.

Jamat leader Maulana Shah Turabul Haq Qadri paid “glorious tribute to the murderer... for his courage, bravery and religious honour and integrity”.

Mumtaz Qadri told interrogators on Tuesday that he shot the liberal Taseer multiple times because of the politician’s vocal opposition to the harsh blasphemy laws.

Qadri is a name commonly adopted by devout men of the Barelvi sect.

Mumtaz Qadri is accused of spraying Taseer in the back with more than 20 rounds of automatic gunfire in an Islamabad street on Tuesday. The commando, who had been assigned to protect his victim, has yet to be charged with a crime.

A senior police official who interrogated Mumtaz Qadri said he was determined to stand by his confession that he was proud to kill a blasphemer. The official said Qadri had looked for a chance to kill the governor since he joined his security squad on Tuesday morning, but did not get a chance at the presidential or senate building.

His chance came when the squad was called to escort Taseer from a restaurant on Tuesday afternoon, the official said.

The official said Qadri threw his weapon down, put up his hands when one of his colleagues aimed at him, and pleaded to be arrested alive.

Taseer, 66, was a senior member of the ruling party and close ally of US-backed President Asif Ali Zardari and the highest profile political figure to be assassinated since former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was slain three years ago. He was an outspoken moderate in a country increasingly beset by zealotry and his death was a reminder of the growing danger to those in Pakistan who dare to challenge Islamist extremists.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and other senior ruling party officials joined up to 6,000 mourners gathered under tight security to pay silent homage to him at the funeral at his official residence in the eastern city of Lahore.

His assassination added to the turmoil in Pakistan, where the government is on the verge of collapse and Islamic militancy is rising.

Khusro Pervez, the commissioner of Lahore, said city authorities had deployed additional police to keep the peace before and after Taseer’s funeral. Thousands of police guarded the governor’s residence and other key sites.

The governor’s residence has been the scene of angry street protests in recent weeks against Taseer’s call to repeal blasphemy laws that order death for anyone convicted of insulting Islam and his support for a Christian woman sentenced to die for allegedly insulting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

In a nod to his campaign for reform, the leading Islamabad newspaper Dawn reported in a front page headline: “Blasphemy law claims another life.”

Taseer’s admirers called him a courageous opponent of Pakistan’s shift in recent years from South Asia’s Sufi- influenced moderation to the more fundamentalist approaches to Islam found in parts of the Middle East.