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President PPP Australia Hanif Muqaddam condemned the brutal assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer
The President Pakistan Peoples Party Australia Mr. M. Hanif Muqaddam visits Pakistan Consulate Sydney and meets Consul General of Pakistan Mr. Azam Mohammed. Mr. Muqaddam offered condolence on the brutal assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer and prayed to Allah Almighty to grant the Shaheed a high place in heaven.
Hanif Muqaddam said that the assassination of Governor Punjab Salman Taseer is a great tragedy for the country and the nation because Governor Salman Taseer was working on a plan of projecting a soft image of Pakistan aimed at putting the country on the path to prosperity and progress.
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Salman Taseer
Salman Taseer was born in Shimla on 31 May 1944.He was a top class Pakistani businessman and politician who served as the governor of the province of Punjab from 2008 until his assassination on 04 January 2011.
He was a Leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and had also served as a minister in the caretaker cabinet of Prime Minister Muhammad Mian Soomro under Pervez Musharraf. Taseer was also the chairman and CEO of the First Capital and World Call Group.He was appointed to the post of governor on May 15, 2008, in place of outgoing governor, Lt Gen (R) Khalid Maqbool, by then-President Musharraf at the request of the PPP.On January 4, 2011, Taseer was assassinated in Islamabad by his own security guard, who disagreed with Taseer's opposition to Pakistan's blasphemy law.
Political Career
Taseer started his political career in his student era, as a member of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in the late 1960s. He was a part of the movement for Bhutto's freedom and opposed his arrest and death sentence. He also wrote a political biography on Bhutto titled Bhutto: A political biography (1980).In the 1988 general elections, Taseer became a member of the Punjab Assembly from Lahore. In the 1990, 1993 and 1997 general elections, he ran as an MNA but lost.In 2007, he was appointed the interim Federal Minister for Industries, Production and Special Initiatives.
On May 15, 2008, Taseer was designated for the office of Governor of Punjab by the PPP-led coalition government. On January 4, 2011 he was murdered in Islamabad by a guard assigned to him for security by the Punjab Government.
Business Career
Taseer set up several chartered accountancy and management consultancy firms early in his career. In 1995, he established the First Capital Securities Corporation (FCSC), a full service brokerage house with equity participation by Smith Barney, Inc., USA, and HG Asia Hong Kong.
Taseer founded the Worldcall group with a payphone network in 1996. The group has grown over the years to become a major private sector telecom operator with a national and regional footprint.[8] A majority stake in World Call was acquired by Omantel, the Sultanate of Oman's incumbent operator, in 2008.
Taseer also owned an English news channel in Pakistan, Business Plus, and the first children's channel, Wikkid Plus and was the publisher of the English language Daily Times.
Personal Life
Salman Taseer was born into an affluent family of intellectuals. His father, Dr. Muhammad Din Taseer, was a close friend of Allama Iqbal and believed to be the first person from the subcontinent who obtained a PhD in English literature from England. His mother Bilqis Taseer (Christobel) was an English woman who was the sister of writer Alys Faiz, widow of Urdu poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz.
Salman Taseer married Aamna Taseer; the couple resided in Lahore. They have three children; Shahbaz, Shehryar, and Shehrbano. Salman Taseer also has 3 children from a previous marriage: Sara, Shaan, and Sanam.
Taseer also has a son, Aatish Taseer (born 1980), with Indian journalist, Tavleen Singh. Married at the time, Taseer met Singh during a book promotion trip to India in the late 70s. Aatish is a freelance journalist in the UK and has recently written a book titled Stranger to History: A Son’s Journey through Islamic Lands on his estranged relationship with his father.
Taseer was known to be one of the trusted aides of Benazir Bhutto. He was a classmate of Nawaz Sharif at Saint Anthony School, Lahore. He had obtained a degree in Chartered Accountancy from London.
Controversy
He stood for change in the Constitution declaring Ahmadi community to be non-Muslims to be revoked.In a recent interview with Meher Bukhair, on Samaa TV, Salman Taseer commented his view about the blasphemy law and filing a mercy petition for Asia Bibi who has been charged death sentence by a court under the Blasphemy Law.
Death
On January 4, 2011, one of Taseer's bodyguards, Malik Mumtaz Qadri, shot him 26 times with a submachine gun at Kohsar Market, in Sector F6, Islamabad as he was returning to his car after meeting a friend for lunch. Kohsar Market is a popular shopping and cafe spot for the city's elite and expatriates. After his assassination, protests erupted in different parts of Punjab. Protestors also burned tires and blocked traffic in Lahore.
The next day thousands turned up for his funeral in spite of calls by numerous religious scholars against honouring him. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and thousands of supporters of the ruling PPP attended funeral prayers in Lahore. The funeral prayers were led by Allama Afzal Chisti of the Ulema wing of the PPP. He was buried at a military cantonment in Lahore.
Assailant
The assailant, Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri from Punjab, was part of the security detail provided to him by the Elite Police. After the shooting, Qadri threw his weapon down and put his hands up when one of his colleagues aimed at him. He pleaded to be arrested alive when turning himself in to authorities. Qadri reportedly said he killed Taseer due to the latter's vocal opposition of the blasphemy law in Pakistan. Notably, Taseer made headlines when he appealed for the pardon of a Christian Pakistani woman, Asia Bibi, who had been sentenced to death for blasphemy. It was suspected that this was the main reason for his assassination. According to a report in the Dawn newspaper, the assailant was associated with Dawat-e-Islami, a religious organization associated with the Barelvi movement.
