The flip side of the coin – Sunni Tehreek plans to provide killer legal assistance

LAHORE – The Sunni Tehreek would provide complete legal assistance to former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer’s assassin Mumtaz Qadri, Sunni Ittehad Council Chairman Fazal Karim said on Sunday.
He was speaking at a religious conference at the Aiwan-e-Iqbal Auditorium. Karim condemned protests in Taseer’s favour saying that no civil society or non-governmental organisations (NGO) ever held a protest against killings of Sunnis in terrorist attacks at the Jamia Naeemia, Nishtar Park Karachi, Data Darbar, Abdullah Shah Ghazi and Farid Ganj Shakar’s shrine or against the ban on veil in France.
He said that religious groups are continuing Ghazi Ilmddin’s mission. Idara Sirat-e-Mustaqeem Pakistan founder Dr Ashraf Asif Jalali announced the Ghazi Ilmuddin Award for Qadri and said that on Taseer’s murderer’s behalf, religious groups would lay a wreath on Ilmuddin’s grave on January 15. He said that on January 19, religious groups would hold a rally from Lahore to Qadri’s house in Rawalpindi.
Jalali demanded the federal government to release Qadri as soon as possible declaring him exonerate from charges of murdering a “blasphemer”. He said that according to Islam, punishment of a blasphemer is death and inclusion of Section 295-C in the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) was the country’s good luck.
Jalali alleged that all participants of Taseer’s funeral had jeopardised their Islamic faith. After the conference, a group of activists, travelling in a van, reached the Governor’s House and chanted slogans in Taseer’s murderer’s favour. Earlier, more than 300 Sunni Tehreek activists held a protest in front of the Lahore Press Club demanding Qadri’s release and chanted slogans against the former governor.