ISLAMABAD, March 4: Apparently in a bid to deflect criticism, Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Friday said the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) only applied to the security of the president and the prime minister and that the security guards provided to federal ministers were not bound to cover them all the time.

He revealed that Gul Sher, the driver of the slain minister, had been taken into protective custody after he gave conflicting statements about the assassination.

However, Malik's statement contradicts one by former information minister, Qamar Zaman Kaira, who had said that after the tragic assassination of former governor Salman Taseer on January 4, the government had given clear instructions to all security departments to ensure that their personnel deployed to provide security stayed with the individual at all times. Kaira revealed this on Wednesday.

He added that “even if Shahbaz Bhatti had refused to take the security squad with him when he was proceeding to his residence, it is the responsibility of the security personnel to disobey him and keep him under their security cover.” Dawn

Malik's statement was also criticised by former interior minister Aftab Ahmed Sharpao who said the basic objective of the deployment of a mobile security squad is not met if it does not cover the VIP at all times. “The security guards of Mr Bhatti were to move with him while he proceeded to any destination,” Mr Sherpao told .

He, however, agreed that the SOPs for the protection of the president and prime minister were different from the security guidelines for others including the federal ministers.

It is also noteworthy that Malik said he was not responsible for changing the SOPs for the protection of VIPs. He said this when asked if he or the interior ministry would consider changing the security protocol of federal ministers.

“I would have no objection to sending the case to the cabinet division for amendments because it is not my job,” he added. He also claimed that all VIPs had been urged to enhance their security on their own.

Earlier in the press conference, the interior minister termed terrorism a cancer that had infected the country for the last 20 years. He also said that “good clues” relating to the assassination had been found. However, he did not provide any details.

He asserted that culprits would be tracked down as no other such case that had taken place in Islamabad had remained unsolved.