Outspoken Pakistani governor assassinated; security guard arrested
By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 4, 2011; 9:31 AM
KARACHI, PAKISTAN - The governor of Pakistan's largest province was assassinated Tuesday at a genteel market in the nation's capital--allegedly by one of his own security guards, angered by the governor's support of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy.
Police said Salman Taseer- a sharp-tongued supporter of embattled President Asif Ali Zardari and an outspoken critic of religious extremists - was shot multiple times at the shopping plaza, which is near his home in Islamabad and is frequented by foreigners.
A Pakistani news station quoted a witness who said he saw a security guard get out of Taseer's vehicle, raise a Kalishnikov rifle and fire through the window of the vehicle.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik said one of the governor's guards surrendered to police after the shooting, and told them he was angered by Taseer's recent public endorsement of a pardon for a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy.
That position had earned Taseer threats from Islamist parties, who held a strike last week against proposed changes to the nation's controversial anti-blasphemy laws. Taseer stood by his stance, posting on Dec. 30 on his Twitter account: "I was under huge pressure sure 2 cow down b4 rightest pressure on blasphemy. Refused. Even if I'm the last man standing."
The Pakistani government announced a three-week mourning period for Taseer, the highest-profile politician slain in the country since the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto three years ago.
Authorities said the arrested security guard was a member of the so-called "elite force," a Punjab police commando unit tasked with providing VIP security.
Militancy "has infiltrated and creeped into every segment of society, whether they are police force or army or bureaucracy," Khwaja Asif, a leader of the political opposition, told Pakistani reporters Tuesday. "This intolerance has become a sort of disease in our society."
The assassination sent new tremors through Pakistan's political scene, which has been rocked by political crisis since a key partner in the U.S.-allied governing coalition led by defected to the opposition on Sunday. That move cost the coalition its parliamentary majority.
Taseer was a close adviser to Zardari, and was known as a firebrand protector of progressive views in a country where conservative religious groups increasingly hold sway.
In an interview last June following the massive bombings of two minority sect mosques in Lahore, Taseer said the only solution to religious extremism was the "continuous, functional position of a democratic system."
"Extremist people are not in the majority," Taseer said at the time. "This is a very narrow minority, but…they are always prepared to do and die. That is their strength."
In November, an alliance of religious political parties issued a decree calling Taseer an "apostate" and calling for his dismissal.
"The governor of Punjab was the bravest person in our government, and the stand he took for women, minorities and on the blasphemy law were incredibly brave and will never be forgotten," said Farahnaz Ispahani, a Zardari spokeswoman. "The government is going to mourn him."
Around the time of the shooting, the nation's main opposition party, which dominates in Punjab, was holding a news conference to demand that the federal government implement a list of reforms within three days or risk collapse.
The U.S.-allied government has been on the rocks since Sunday, when Pakistan's second-largest political party left the ruling coalition led by Zardari's Pakistan People's Party. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement cited government corruption and a recent gasoline price hike as the reasons it left the government and joined the opposition.
Zadari's options for salvaging his government include trying to win the support of the main opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, headed by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
But Sharif said Monday that Zadari's party must implement corruption verdicts against government officials, slash government spending and reverse the gasoline price increase.
If those steps are not taken, Sharif said, his party could form a united opposition with MQM, which could force a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani and potentially trigger early elections.
Sharif's party controls the provincial government in Punjab, where Taseer, as an appointee of Zardari, held little actual power. He was much more influential in Islamabad.
Taseer's security was provided by the Punjab government, and it seemed likely in the hours after the killing that suspicion would fall on his political opponents. Malik, the interior minister, said the government would investigate whether the security guard accused of shooting Taseer had been "asked" to carry out the killing.
Punjabi Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif--brother of Nawaz Sharif and a leader of the same opposition party--visited the hospital where Taseer's body was taken and promised an investigation of the assassination.
Outspoken Pakistani governor assassinated; security guard arrested