LAHORE: Pakistan was in mourning and on high alert Wednesday ahead of the funeral of Punjab provincial governor Salman Taseer.
The 66-year-old, was shot dead by a member of his own security detail outside an Islamabad cafe.
Shrouded in a white sheet, his body was flown home overnight from the federal capital to the Punjab seat of government in Lahore for a state funeral ordered by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.
The city shut down and authorities put a ring of steel around key venues to guard against possible unrest after dozens of supporters of the main ruling Pakistan People's Party took to the streets on Tuesday to protest the killing.
"The body will be brought to Governor's House at 11:30 am (0630 GMT) and the funeral prayer will be offered at 1:00 pm," Lahore commissioner Khusro Pervez told reporters.
"Security is on high alert in Lahore and in the entire Punjab. We have sufficient reserve force deployed as well," Pervez said.
"We will investigate whether it was an individual act or there is some organisation behind it," Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters.
He named the assassin as Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, a government-trained commando assigned to the governor on at least five or six previous occasions.
"He confessed that he killed the governor because he had called the blasphemy law a black law," Malik said.
Taseer was outspoken against the Taliban and militants hunkered down in the country's northwest, who have also made increasing inroads into Punjab in recent years. He also spoke out recently against blasphemy laws.
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