ISLAMABAD – Interior Affairs Minister Rehman Malik has said that the Punjab Police was responsible to provide security to Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer and it (police) would be questioned about the security lapse.
Talking to reporters, Rehman said that Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, who joined the security squad (of the governor) from Rawalpindi, has been arrested on basis of his confession that he killed Salmaan Taseer because he had declared the blasphemy law a ‘black law.’
Rehman said that a detailed investigation has been ordered into the gruesome incident. All the security squad of the Elite Force accompanying the governor has been taken into the police custody, he said, and confirmed that only one arrest has been made.
Regarding intelligence reports of the possible murder attempts on Taseer, the Interior Affairs minister said that the Punjab Police would be questioned in this regard, but it was a practice that whereabouts of the security officials deployed with the VIP personalities were scrutinized before their duty.
Rehman paid rich tribute to Governor Taseer by saying that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has lost a good politician, fantastic businessman and a national hero.
In Islamabad, Minorities Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti told reporters that the federal government should bring all those people to justice who had issued ‘fatwas’ against Governor Taseer. Angry PPP workers have begun protesting against the gruesome murder outside the Governor’s House in Lahore, and other major cities of the province.
