Jan. 13: Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, the bodyguard-cum-assassin of Punjab governor Salman Taseer, had remained a security guard for President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani among others, official record suggests.
The Elite Force official, who assassinated Taseer for advocating changes in the blasphemy law, had performed duties with the President, the Prime Minister, Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif, interior minister Rehman Malik and Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) chief Nawaz Sharif and others, a government official revealed.
“He was detailed for such duties even after his superiors declared him unfit for these duties in 2004,” he said, citing an intelligence report. He added that Qadri performed a security duty with a foreign delegation as well on two occasions in 2010.
The report reveals that Qadri was also part of a raid team conducted by Military Intelligence (MI) and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) against terrorist outfits in 2008. The assassin of the Punjab governor performed duties with him as his personal security guard for four times — on April 15, 2010, May 26, 2010, September 3, 2010, and on January 4, 2011.
The report says Qadri also remained with Taseer on general duties on 10 occasions — five times in 2008, once in 2009, three times in 2010 and once in 2011 when he killed him in the Kohsar Market in Islamabad.The report compiled by the intelligence agencies after Qadri gunned Taseer down and surrendered himself to be arrested by his colleagues, says he performed security duties with President Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani for four times in 2008, eight times in 2009 and six times in 2010.
President Zardari has been on the hit list of the Taliban militants since he assumed office in 2008.