TTP Offers Exchange of Mumtaz Qadri with Shahbaz Taseer

Mumtaz QadriTTP called for the discharge of Malik Mumtaz Qadri, the elite police commando in Taseer’s personal security, had gunned him down in Islamabad’s uptown market in January 2011. Taliban want a cold-blooded murderer should be released.

Former Punjab governor Salman Taseer’s killer Mumtaz Qadri has also been included in the list demanding release of prisoners as they have demanded to exchange of Mumtaz Qadri of Shahbaz Taseer. The TTP have also demanded withdrawal of troops from tribal areas and abolishment of military check posts. It has further demanded the release and exchange of prisoners and ending all cases against TTP activists.

The TTP has asked the government to release around 300 people including women and children it says are being held despite being “non-combatants.” Taliban spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said the Taliban had decided on a ceasefire “because of a positive response from the government, an appeal from the religious scholars and for the better future of Pakistan”. On March 22, government negotiators and TTP intermediaries had claimed to have broken the deadlock over the venue of the proposed meeting with members of the TTP Shura.

Rahimullah Yusufzai, Pakistan’s most respected editor and fearless war correspondent said that there will not create deadlock between the negotiations with Taliban. Because deadlock can occur when there will no ceasefire and they will release prisoner from ceasefire then deadlock can occur. He further said that the matter of the prisoner’s discharge is very complex because Taliban has claimed that there are many innocents who are kept by the government. While Government said that there is nothing like that on which deadlock can create.

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