Pakistan Killer Had Revealed Plans

Thousands gathered in Lahore for the funeral of Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Punjab province who had criticized Pakistan's blasphemy laws.

The governor's assassination presents serious implications for security in Pakistan.

"The governor's remarks had hurt the sentiments of Muslims and Qadri could not control his sentiments," said one top TV anchor on a prime-time show.

The Jamaat-e-Ahl-e-Sunnat, another religious group, said in a statement signed by more than 500 clerics that Mr. Qadri was a "true soldier of Islam" and warned Muslims not to mourn his death.

"It is a warning to all intellectuals and politicians who [want] to change Islamic laws," the statement said.

Jamaat-e-Islami, one of Pakistan's main Islamist political parties, also said the assassination was justified. "If the government had removed him from the governorship, there wouldn't have been the need for someone to shoot him," it said in a statement.

The killing of a senior politician who spoke out against Pakistan's blasphemy laws was widely lauded by Islamist groups and sympathizers Wednesday and it emerged that the assassin, a member of an elite police force, had told others about the pending attack but had still been assigned to his victim's detail.

Malik Mumtaz Qadri pumped multiple rounds Tuesday into Salmaan Taseer, governor of Punjab province, at a shopping complex in an upscale part of Islamabad. He later told police he was angered by Mr. Taseer's efforts to abrogate the country's strict blasphemy laws.

Malik Mumtaz Qadri, third from right, was greeted by supporters as he arrived at court in Islamabad on Wednesday.

Mr. Qadri had previously been removed from a branch of the police dealing with counterterrorism due to concerns about his Islamist leanings, and had himself come forward to ask to guard Mr. Taseer, a senior police official said.

Preliminary investigations also have revealed that Mr. Qadri informed other police officers of his plans, the official said. Police have detained a dozen other people, including six police officers who were also on guard duty and are suspected of abetting the crime after they failed to stop the shooting of Mr. Taseer.

Investigations are focusing on Mr. Qadri's links with Dawat-i-Islami, a radical Islamist group that has been at the forefront of protests in recent weeks against efforts to change the blasphemy laws, the police official said. Mr. Taseer's death has exposed a deep fissure in Pakistan society between liberal politicians with Western lifestyles and religious leaders who hew to an Islamist view of the world and are gaining influence.

Thousands of people gathered for Mr. Taseer's funeral in his native Lahore on Wednesday, including Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.

Mr. Taseer's killing drew international condemnation. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement ,"His death is a great loss." Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, who was close to Mr. Taseer, vowed to bring those responsible to justice. He did not attend Wednesday's funeral for security reasons.

Dawn, a Pakistani newspaper, said in a editorial: "The governor of Punjab had been an outspoken critic of the blasphemy laws and he paid the ultimate price for his rejection of the cancer of intolerance that has aggressively eaten away at this country for over three decades now."

But Lahore remained in lockdown amid fears that local religious groups would stage violent protests.

Mr. Qadri became an instant hero for the Islamists who posted thousands of messages on Facebook. "Pray for the ascension of Qadri to heaven," reads one.

Many religious leaders, even those from so-called moderate groups, were angered by Mr. Taseer's support in recent months of a 45-year-old Christian farm worker, Asia Bibi, who was sentenced to death by a Pakistani court in November for blasphemy for insulting Islam.

"Everybody is in favor of Mumtaz Qadri," said Raghib Hussain Naeemi, a leading cleric in Lahore. "Everybody is thinking that Salmaan Taseer was on the wrong side. He's standing with that person who committed blasphemy."

The Jamaat-e-Ahl-e-Sunnat, another religious group, said in a statement signed by more than 500 clerics that Mr. Qadri was a "true soldier of Islam" and warned Muslims not to mourn his death.

"It is a warning to all intellectuals and politicians who [want] to change Islamic laws," the statement said.

Jamaat-e-Islami, one of Pakistan's main Islamist political parties, also said the assassination was justified. "If the government had removed him from the governorship, there wouldn't have been the need for someone to shoot him," it said in a statement.

The rift between liberal politicians and religious groups shows difficulties facing the U.S. and other Western nations that are giving billions of dollars in aid money to bolster Pakistan's secular government.

Mr. Taseer was a businessman and a leading politician from the Pakistan People's Party, whose leader, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, was also assassinated in 2007 by religious extremists. Ms. Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, also a former prime minister, was hanged in the late 1970s by Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, a military dictator who tightened the nation's religious laws and oversaw an Islamization of society.

The government of Mr. Zardari, Ms. Bhutto's widower and co-chairman of the PPP, has been slow to clamp down on religious extremists for fear of causing a backlash from clerics in Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province, and elsewhere at a time when the military is also fighting Taliban militants on the border with Afghanistan.

Clerics have openly called for Ms. Bibi's death in recent weeks, with one putting a $6,000 bounty on the farm worker's head. She remains in jail and is appealing her sentence, saying that the women in her village who reported her to authorities were motivated by hate of her for her Christian beliefs and were attempting to settle scores.

Other segments of society, including talk-show hosts, have also justified Mr. Taseer's murder.

"The governor's remarks had hurt the sentiments of Muslims and Qadri could not control his sentiments," said one top TV anchor on a prime-time show.

WSJ