'Somebody has to stand up,' Salman Taseer had responded in a television interview last December, after being reminded that challenging Pakistan's rightwing Islamists over the controversial blasphemy laws would involve great risk. Weeks later, fears over this risk were proved correct. On 4 January, Taseer's official bodyguard emptied two gun magazines into the governor, killing him in the centre of the federal capital.
The bodyguard, a reportedly unrepentant 26-year-old named Malik Mumtaz Qadri who served in Punjab's Elite Force, has since confessed to the murder. Calm and composed during his production before a magistrate, he received a warm reception from a group of bystanders who showered rose petals on him. Among those praising Qadri's actions were lawyers.
Salman Taseer, 1944-2011
The police are now investigating whether Qadri acted alone or was part of a wider plot. Either way, it appears that his bosses failed to scrutinise his links with extremist groups for security clearance. If investigators find that Qadri did not act alone, the political fallout – in Punjab province in particular and the country in general – will be massive. Punjab, the country's largest and most influential province, is ruled by a coalition government of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif (PML-N). Recently, these two main political forces have been drifting away from each other, and a war of words between them could quickly drag the country back to the politics of confrontation last seen during the 1990s.