KARACHI: Several religious parties on Monday staged a demonstration outside the Karachi Press Club in support of Mumtaz Qadri, the killer of former Punjab governor Salman Taseer, whose death sentence was upheld by the Islamabad High Court.

Speaking to the protesters, Pakistan Sunni Tehreek leader Mohammed Shahid Ghori said they would be compelled to take an extreme action if the decree was implemented.

Read: With terror charges dropped, glorifying Qadri no longer a crime

Citing the example of US national Raymond Davis, he asked the government to release the condemned prisoner.

He also said that the support extended by some lawyers to him showed that the killing of the former governor was ‘correct’.

The slain governor had supported a Christian woman accused of blasphemy and had declared the blasphemy law a ‘black law’.

Jamiat Ulema Pakistan leader Qazir Ahmed Noorani said those who had called Qadri a ‘terrorist’ would be taken to task.

Jamaat Ahle Sunnat leader Sufi Mohammed Lakhani vowed that they would continue a peaceful struggle for the release of Qadri.

Published in Dawn March 10th, 2015

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