The smiling commando, who made a victory sign at the court, has been hailed a hero by the powerful religious right.
Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri was showered with rose petals for a second day as he arrived at an anti-terror court in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, more than seven hours after media first gathered in anticipation of the event.
The judge had ordered Qadri to appear after he was charged over Tuesday's assassination, and several hundred lawyers and students descended on the premises in a show of support for the 26-year-old.
As the crowd became increasingly vocal, Islamabad authorities said they wanted to relocate the hearing to the capital, where TV footage showed a makeshift court created at a heavily protected municipal building.
“The Islamabad administration has issued a notification to conduct a hearing in the Mumtaz Qadri case in Islamabad,” administration official Amir Ahmad Ali said, refusing to announce when and where exactly Qadri would appear.
An armored car was then seen arriving, presumably with Qadri inside, but in Rawalpindi the crowd prevented the judge from leaving the premises.
“We requested the judge that legally he cannot go to Islamabad to hear the accused and he accepted our request,” lawyer Malik Waheed Anjum told reporters.
“The judge ordered Islamabad police to present the accused in his court in Rawalpindi,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) sent its initial report to the joint investigation team set up to probe the assassination.
The report states that Qadri was positioned at a place from where he could not be shot at, pointing out the positions of the other guards at the time of the attack.
Other bodyguards’ statements are yet to be recorded.
A separate investigation also revealed that former superintendent of police of Rawalpindi special branch Nasir Durrani had said that Qadri was not fit for VIP security. Durrani is heading the investigation team.
The supervising police officer of Qadri had asked for his removal from all sensitive security duties because of his extreme religious views, an investigator said on Thursday.
A senior police official investigating the case said Qadri had been declared a “security hazard” and his supervising officer had written to the Punjab Home Department and said he should be removed from VIP detail.
“He had views like an extremist and that was the reason (for his removal),” the official said. Qadri's supervisor, Nasir Durrani, is now heading the Punjab government's investigation into the murder.
Meanwhile, it emerged on Thursday that Sheikh Waqas, owner of Best Western Chain of Hotels in Pakistan, was the person who had taken Taseer to a restaurant at Kohsar Market for a cup of coffee.
Waqas, a Lahore-based businessman, disappeared from the scene after Taseer was attacked.
There is no mention of Waqas in the initial police report.
Arab News learned from his friends that Waqas was a new face in Taseer’s social circle. The anti-terrorist court of Rawalpindi has given a further five days’ physical remand to police to complete the chargesheet against Qadri.
Members of the main ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) to which Taseer belonged, earlier alluded that his killing was part of a wider plot, slamming security failures that led to his death.
“The martyrdom of Salman Taseer is a conspiracy against Pakistan and Pakistani institutions,” said Imtiaz Safdar Warraich, a junior minister in PPP-led government. “The people behind this assassination should be exposed immediately... There was a serious security lapse,” he said.
Questions have been asked about why no policeman or guard apparently made an attempt to overpower the 26-year-old shooter.
“Telling colleagues about his (Qadri's) intention, asking to be arrested alive and the silent spectator role of policemen deployed at the crime scene raise too many questions,” Warraich said.
The supervising police officer of Qadri had asked for his removal from all sensitive security duties because of his extreme religious views, an investigator said on Thursday.
Mosharraf Zaidi, an independent analyst and columnist in Islamabad, said Taseer's death indicated just how dire the situation in Pakistan has become.
“There has been a steady erosion of reason from the public space,” said Zaidi. “Words like liberal and secular have become demonized in Pakistan.”
— With input from agencies
