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Pakistan Top Stories

Timeline: Salman Taseer Killing to Mumtaz Qadri Hanging

ISLAMABAD: The order which was waiting for like ages has been obligated now and ensued a mixed kind of reaction and hell of a chaos in the country.

The killer of Salman Taseer, Malik Mumtaz Qadri has been executed on Monday, 4:30 am at Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi. Pakistani social media users cracked upon the issue while the electronic media did not give it much highlight.

Islamabad Bar Association has called for strike over this issue and today will be called as Black Day by them. Same reaction has come from several religious associations and clerics as well. Schools have been closed and roads are blocked in Rawalpindi.

Let’s have a look at the sequence of these events,

November 20, 2011: Taseer, former governor of Punjab, visited a jailed Christian woman, Asia Bibi who was accused of blasphemy and had been given death sentence. He condemned the Blasphemy law and termed it ‘Black Law’. This invited backlash from clerics and religious minded people.

November 23, 2011: Almi Jamaat Ahle Sunnat in an emergency meeting chaired by Sahibzada Allama Pir Syed Mustafa Ashraf Rizvi issued a fatwa declaring the Punjab governor as an apostate. The religious group also urged the Supreme Court to act against Taseer and remove him from his slot.

November 24, 2010: Religious parties including Tahaffuz Namoos-e-Risalat Mahaz and Tehrik-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool staged demonstrations in many cities and towns of the Punjab province, demanding the governor’s dismissal and condemning what they called a West-sponsored movement against the blasphemy law in Pakistan.

November 25, 2010: Governor Salman Taseer said that he had gone to meet with Aasia Bibi for the sake of humanity, adding that his meeting with her was being politicized.

November 29, 2010: Salman Taseer, in a media talk, said that decrees were being issued against him for helping a poor, illiterate and helpless Christian woman.

January 04, 2011: Taseer was assassinated in Islamabad by his own security guard Mumtaz Qadri, who disagreed with Taseer’s stance on Pakistan’s blasphemy law.

January 06, 2011: The accused was sent on a five-day physical remand.

January 07, 2011: A local court sent him on a one-day remand to appear before an Anti-Terrorism Court of Rawalpindi. At least 300 lawyers submitted their applications to plead his case. They showered him with rose petals when Qadri appeared in the ATC. Initially, the police arrested 20 Elite Force personnel, father of the accused and his four brothers. However, they were all later released.

January 09, 2011: Qadri confessed in a court, before the Assistant Commissioner City, that he had killed Punjab governor Salman Taseer for his ‘blasphemous’ statements.

January 10, 2011: The ATC sent him to the Adiyala jail on a 14-day judicial remand.

February 01, 2011: Mufti Hanif and Imtiaz Shah, accused of collaborating with Qadri, were acquitted in the case.

February 14, 2011: The ATC heard the case in the Adiyala jail, due to security concerns, wherein he was formally charged and confessed to murdering the Punjab governor.

October 01, 2011: Mumtaz Qadri, the self-confessed murderer of Salmaan Taseer, was sentenced to death by the anti-terrorism court.

October 06, 2011:  Mumtaz Qadri filed an appeal against his death sentence.

October 11, 2011: Islamabad High Court (IHC) admitted the appeal filed by the Mumtaz Qadri.

January 27, 2016: After more than three years, the IHC started hearing Qadri’s appeal against his death sentence.

The case was adjourned till February 3, 2015, during the hearing as Advocate General and Additional Deputy General sought time to prepare arguments on the case.

February 04, 2016: The IHC refused to transfer the case to the military courts.

February 11, 2016: The IHC reserved its verdict in the Salman Taseer Murder Case.

February 29, 2016: Qadri gets hanged silently.

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