Prominent Ally of Pakistan’s President Is Assassinated

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The governor of Pakistan’s most important and populous province was assassinated by an elite police guard in Islamabad on Tuesday, plunging the already unstable national government into an even deeper crisis. It was the highest-profile killing of a Pakistani leader since Benazir Bhutto was killed at a political rally three years ago.
The governor, Salman Taseer, was shot at close range as he was getting into his car in the Kohsar Market, an area frequently visited by the city’s elite and by foreigners. Interior Minister Rahman Malik said that a police guard was the killer. Citing hospital officials, local news media reports said Mr. Taseer was struck by nine bullets.

The assassination came after days of protests, unrest and political upheaval that have shaken the country at a time when the United States is pressing Pakistan to cooperate more fully in the war in Afghanistan and in opposition to the Taliban.

Mr. Taseer had also been embroiled in a recent debate over Pakistan’s contentious blasphemy law. While Mr. Taseer supported its repeal, religious parties strongly opposed any changes.

A suspect in the shooting, identified as Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, is under arrest, the police said. Mr. Qadri, an elite-force security guard, was motivated to kill Mr. Taseer because of his opposition to the blasphemy law, police officials said.

Mr. Taseer was a prominent member of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party and a close ally of President Asif Ali Zardari, Mrs. Bhutto’s husband, who ascended after her assassination on Dec. 27, 2007. He appointed Mr. Taseer as governor of Punjab in 2008.

The assassination of Mr. Taseer came as a severe blow to Mr. Zardari, whose government is close to collapse after the defection of a major ally.

On Tuesday, Mr. Sharif’s party gave the Pakistan Peoples Party a three-day deadline to accept a list of demands to avert a no-confidence vote that could provoke the collapse of the national coalition government, The Associated Press reported. Two of the coalition’s partners have left, leaving the government of Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani in question.

Mr. Sharif said the government must reverse recent fuel price increases, cut expenditures by 30 percent and enforce a series of court verdicts against ruling party officials for corruption. Mr. Sharif said that if the government failed to accept these demands within 72 hours, his group would join other opposition parties in moving against the government, The A.P. said.
Mr. Taseer, a successful businessman who owned a television channel and was the publisher of a liberal English-language daily, had been allied with rights activists, critics and several government officials in urging the government to repeal or revise the country’s blasphemy law.

Effigies of Mr. Taseer were burned in countrywide protests last Friday when a strike by Islamist parties, seeking to head off any change in the law, brought Pakistan to a standstill. Thousands of people took to the streets and forced businesses to close.

The law was introduced in the 1980s under the military dictatorship of Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq as part of a policy of promoting Islam to unite this deeply fractious society. It calls for a mandatory death sentence for anyone convicted of insulting Islam. Rights groups say the law has been used to persecute minorities, especially Christians, but attempts to revise it have repeatedly been thwarted. In fiery speeches across all major cities and towns, religious leaders warned the government on Friday against altering the law.