London: January 4, 2011. (PCP) An assassin has murdered a senior Pakistani politician for opposing the country's controversial blasphemy laws under which Christians are being persecuted.
Salman Taseer, the Governor of Punjab, was gunned down on January 4 by one of his own elite force security guards.
The man fired two bullets into Mr Taseer as the politician climbed out of a vehicle on arriving for a lunch at Khosar Market, an upmarket shopping and dining area in Islamabad, the country's capital.
The attacker was injured in a shoot-out with police before surrendering. Five other people were also wounded in the crossfire.
Mr Taseer was immediately taken to the Poly Clinic Hospital in Islamabad, but he died on the way from his injuries.
Afterwards the killer boasted that he shot Mr Taseer because "the governor described the blasphemy laws as a black law".
An intelligence official interrogating the suspect, identified as Mumtaz Qadri, told the Associated Press said he was proud to have killed a blasphemer.
The Pakistani government has come under international pressure to either repeal or amend the laws because it is being routinely used by Islamists to harass the Christian minority.
Under the code it is a capital offence to insult Mohammed, the founder of Islam, but human rights groups say Christians are being prosecuted on the basis of false allegations.
In November, Asiya Bibi, a Christian mother of five, became the first woman to be sentenced to hang for insulting Mohammed.
She argued that she was falsely accused following an argument with a Muslim woman who objected to sharing a drinking font with a Christian, and is appealing against sentence and conviction.Mr Taseer, 56, was among those politicians close to President Asif Ali Zardari who were pressing for the laws to be changed in the light of evidence of widespread abuse.
Nasir Saeed, a leading campaigner for the abolition of the laws, described the governor's murder as a "very dark day for Christians in Pakistan".
"It's a great loss for Pakistani religious minorities, because Salman Taseer was a vocal about minority rights, changes to blasphemy law on several occasions, and on the release of Asiya Bibi from prison particularly," said Mr Saeed, the director of the Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement.
"The killing is a terrorist act against the Christians of Pakistan and it is a serious attempt to stop any possible changes to blasphemy law," he said.
Mr Taseer, he added, had petitioned the President to change the law and there was a danger that his plea will now be ignored.
The government has indicated it has no proposals under consideration to amend the blasphemy law and that the petitions by Mr Taseer and Sherry Rehman are being considered only as individual acts.
"This is very dark day for Christians in Pakistan," said Mr Saeed. "This is an act of oppression and of humiliation of the entire community and it is taking away from them the chance from to be represented and to be heard."
The murder represents the most high-profile assassination of a political figure in Pakistan since the killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007.
Mr Taseer was a member of Mrs Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and a friend of President Zardari, her widower.
A business and media tycoon who used Twitter to publicise his opinions, he was appointed to the ceremonial position of Punjab governor in May 2008.
Farahnaz Ispahani, an aide to President Zardari and friend of Mr Taseer, described him as the "most courageous voice after Benazir Bhutto on the rights of women and religious minorities".
Mr Taseer had continued to press for changes to the law in spite of receiving threats from a number of Islamic organisations.
The Pakistani government has indicated that it is keen to find out if his assassin acted alone or if he carried out the killing as part of a wider plot involving Islamist groups.
Dozens of innocent Pakistanis are prosecuted each year under the blasphemy law, which has its origins in colonial era legislation designed to protect the then minority Muslims from oppression by the Hindu majority of India.
The current form dates back to the 1980s military rule of General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and human rights activists have long complained that it is used to take revenge against Christians or and persecute rile.
