Pakistan hangs former policeman Mumtaz Qadri over murder of Punjab governor

Pakistan authorities have executed elite police commando Mumtaz Qadri at a jail in northeastern Punjab province on Monday morning for the murder of the former Punjab governor at a market more than five years ago.

Qadri was hanged at the Adiala jail in Rawalpindi city after an antiterrorism court convicted and sentenced him to death in October 2011 for shooting exGovernor Salman Taseer 28 times in Islamabad’s Kohsar Market more than nine months earlier.

Governor Taseer had reportedly criticized Pakistan’s antiblasphemy laws, prompting Qadri to shoot him in broad daylight, according to the Daily Pakistan newspaper.

The hanging has sparked a protest by some one thousand of Qadri’s extremist Islamic supporters, who gathered at Mall Road in Lahore outside the Punjab Assembly to shout slogans condemning the execution saying Qadri was protecting Islam, reports Pakistan Today.

Lahore residents have criticized the extremists for blocking the main road and stirring up civil unrest.

“The use of loudspeakers at a public place and inciting the participants to violence must be a crime keeping in view the critical security situation of the country,” said Arslan Maqsood, a Lahore university student.

Authorities have deployed riot police and Law Enforcement Agency personnel to Adiala jail in a bid to control the protests.