Killer of Pakistani politician a hero on Facebook

Thousands of Facebook users have welcomed the killing of Pakistani politician Salman Taseer as a strike against reformers of the country's tight blasphemy laws.

Salman Taseer, the governor of Pakistan’s most populous and powerful province, Punjab, was gunned down by his own bodyguard at a shopping center in the nation's capital, Islamabad.

The death of Taseer, 66, a stallwart of the ruling Pakistan People's Party, has driven a government already reeling from defections this week of major coalition partners further into crisis. Pakistan's main opposition leader has given the government a three-day deadline to accept a list of demands to avert its collapse, including a reversal of recent fuel price hikes, and the prosecution of ruling party officials for corruption.

Taseer was an outspoken critic of religious extremists and recently drew anger from Islamists for his opposition to blasphemy laws that led to a Christian woman being sentenced to death for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

His bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri, 26, confessed to the killing.

"[His security guard] confessed that he killed the governor himself because he had called the blasphemy law a black law," Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters.

In the hours after the shooting, nearly 2,000 Facebook users joined one group on the social networking site praising Qadri for shooting Taseer, and dozens of "fans" joined other pages set up in Qadri's honor.

All the pages had been removed by Wednesday. But other private account holders used their Facebook status updates to make comments like: "We salute you Mumtaz Qadri," "thank God he [Taseer] is not alive [any] more" and praise for the attacker as "a soldier of Islam."

Those Facebook users who spoke out in support of the politician expressed sadness over the growing Islamisation of the country.

Meantime, the police are on high alert in Lahore ahead of the funeral for Taseer.

Khusro Pervez, the commissioner of Lahore, said city authorities had deployed extra police to ensure peace before and after Taseer's funeral, The Guardian reported. Thousands of police were guarding Taseer's residence and other key sites.

In the wake of Taseer's death, enraged PPP supporters have taken to the streets across Pakistan chanting slogans and weeping. A procession of ashen-faced ministers and officials trailed into the Islamabad hospital where Taseer's body was taken.

Taseer was close ally of Asif Ali Zardari, the president and PPP leader, and his killing immediately raised questions over the future of his already troubled presidency.

On Sunday, a key ally of Zardari's Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), of which Taseer was also an influential leader, left the ruling coalition in a dispute over petrol price increases.

The defection of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), second-largest party in Pakistan's ruling coalition,means Pakistan's government has lost its parliamentary majority.

Pakistan's prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is holding talks with opposition leaders in a bid to prevent a possible no-confidence vote and head off an early election.

The killing of Taseer the second major political assassination in recent years, following the killing of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, Zardari's wife, in 2007. Her death sent the nation into convulsions and sparked a wave of sympathy that political experts believe helped the PPP ascend to power in the 2008 elections.