Inspiring Taseer’s killer: Police on the trail of Pindi cleric

Investigators are trying to find the cleric, who is said to have inspired Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri.

ISLAMABAD: Investigators are trying to locate a Rawalpindi-based cleric, who is said to have inspired Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, the self-confessed assassin of the Punjab governor, to carry out the crime.

Officials said the cleric has been on the run since the day of Salmaan Taseer’s murder.

One of the two suspects arrested a day ago was in the prime minister’s security detail. Another was an employee of Pemra. Both were traced by their cell phone links with the alleged killer.

Sources close to the investigation said Qadri told interrogators that he was motivated by one of the cleric’s sermons.

“Qadri said he attended the cleric’s congregation on December 31, 2010, in Rawalpindi and listened to his speech,” the source said. Since then, the man said he was trying to find an opportunity to kill the governor, whom he believed was a “blasphemer”.

“I had not even shared the plan with my wife. I feared she might inform my father who would (try to) stop me from carrying it out,” Qadri is reported  to have told the interrogators.

However, investigators believe it was not a matter of mere motivation: they believe he had been given a complete plan.

“It appears to us that he was given a (clear-cut) plan with details like possible time and place for carrying out the murder,” a police official said. But the assassin has stuck to his original statement, said the official.

A report, compiled by the team constituted by the Punjab chief minister to look into Qadri’s background, provides an insight into the security cover provided to the governor and the religious inclinations of the killer. The report will soon be presented to the chief minister.

According to the inquiry team’s findings, Qadri was inducted as a constable in the Punjab police in 2002 and declared unfit for VIP duty in 2004.

Despite the stigma he was made part of the Elite Force after undergoing nine months of rigorous training. Most Elite Force personnel are deployed as VIP guards.

Sources cited the report which quotes Qadri as saying that he was a “follower” of Qari Hanif, a cleric of the Jamaat-e-Ahle Sunnat, a Barelvi group. According to him, the cleric instigated him to act against the governor, whom he had branded a “blasphemer”.

The joint investigation team, led by deputy inspector-general of police (operations) in Islamabad, Bani Amin, has yet to find clues to the possible involvement of Qadri’s fellow guards in the assassination.

“They insisted they were unaware of Qadri’s intentions,” said a source close to the investigations. Sources said it had been ascertained even before registering the FIR in which Section 302/109 and not 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) was included.

“The scene of the assassination was re-enacted in the lock-up where Qadri and others were asked to demonstrate how it unfolded,” sources said.

The two in-charges of the squad, Inspector Amir and Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) Nadeem, told the investigators that Qadri was with the governor while the remaining commandos were on their designated positions in the cordon around him.

“Qadri surprised us all,” ASI Nadeem had told the police.

Qadri, who was barely five to six feet from the governor, did not give anyone time to react.

“It was all over in three seconds,” Nadeem said during interrogations. Immediately afterwards, understanding what had happened, ASI Nadeem held Qadri at gunpoint and asked him to surrender, the source said.

After dropping the murder weapon and raising his hands, Qadri had replied ‘Nadeem bhai humari koi dushmani nahin hai, main ne is ko marna tha so mar diya, ab chahe mujhe maar do (Nadeem! You and I have no enmity. I had to kill him (the governor), now you may kill me if you want)’,” said a source.

However, all personnel in the governor’s security detail were in police custody and were interrogated by different investigators.

Sources said the police will try to obtain an extension in the physical remand of Qadri. They believe Qadri could not have acted alone.

However, the success of police’s plea for extension in physical remand was largely dependent on the report of the medical board which had examined him for possible police torture in custody.

Sources said the investigators were particularly concerned over the initial findings of the medical board, which had examined Qadri at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 9^th, 2011.