Daily Times

LAHORE/KARACHI: Several candlelit vigils were organised in the provincial capital on Thursday to pay tributes to martyred Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer on his seventh death anniversary.

Taseer’s family arranged a ceremony at their home to mark the death anniversary wherein family members, close relatives and friends participated. Special prayers were offered for the soul of late Salmaan Taseer, who sacrificed his life for the cause of humanity and provision of rights to the marginalised sections of the society.

The former governor was assassinated by his own bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri, on January 4, 2011, because he had defended a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who was accused of blasphemy. The Guardian had described Taseer’s assassination as ‘one of the most traumatic events in the recent Pakistani history’.

In a statement issued on the occasion, Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto paid glowing tributes to Shaheed Salmaan Taseer. He said that Shaheed Salmaan Taseer always stood for the weak and the vulnerable, struggled for the restoration of democracy and the constitution and eventually laid down his life for the cause he lived for.

Bilawal said that Shaheed Salmaan Taseer kept alive the hopes of the downtrodden and weaker segments of the society attached to the party and the ideology of the forefathers of the country. “The way he fought for the marginalised people who were targeted by oppressors made him a hero of the nation,” he said, adding that Shaheed Salmaan Taseer was a true follower of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Benazir Bhutto. He said late Taseer was an asset of the party and that he would remain in the memories of PPP leaders, workers and the voiceless people forever.

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Punjab Chapter held a ceremony to pay tributes to late Salmaan Taseer as well as other party leaders, including former prime minister Zulfkar Ali Bhutto and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who had sacrificed their lives for the sake of the country.

PPP Punjab Women Wing President Samina Khalid Ghurki and Lahore District President Aziz ur Rehman Chan also arranged separate ceremonies in this regard.

Activist Saeeda Diep, who had been very active in organising candlelit vigils and other ceremonies to honour the services of late Salmaan Taseer for the mankind, claimed on Thursday that she had been barred by the police from attending a candlelight vigil planned by the Institute for Peace and Secular Studies at the Liberty Roundabout. However, a police spokesman clarified that she had been taken into ‘protective custody’ due to security threats.

Published in Daily Times, January 5^th 2018.