Salmaan Taseer (Urdu, Punjabi: سلمان تاثیر; June 12, 1946[citation needed] – January 4, 2011) was a Pakistani businessman and politician who served as the Governor of the province of Punjab. He was a member of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and had also served as a minister in the caretaker cabinet of Prime Minister Muhammad Mian Soomro under Pervez Musharraf. Taseer was also the chairman and CEO of the First Capital and Worldcall Group. He was appointed to the post of governor on 15 May 2008 in place of outgoing governor, Lt Gen (R) Khalid Maqbool. by former President, Pervez Musharraf at the request of the PPP establishment.
He died on January 4, 2011 in Islamabad when he was assassinated by his own security guard due to an argument regarding Pakistan's blasphemy law.
According to the Outlook, the book is a fictional version of Aatish’s dramatic life story. Briefly, the story is this: “A short, intense relationship between a Pakistani politician, Salmaan Taseer, and an Indian journalist, Tavleen Singh, produces a child. As the relationship founders, the father (according to his son’s account) abandons the mother and the infant in London.
They move to Delhi, where the boy, Aatish, grows up in an elite Sikh family, but with an awareness of being ‘different’ because of his Muslim and Pakistani ancestry. “Twice in his childhood, he makes long-distance overtures to his father, but is rebuffed. In 2002, at the age of 21, he tries again, by simply landing up in Lahore, and meets with greater success. Salmaan’s political career has waned — the military rules; his party’s boss, Benazir Bhutto, is in exile — but he is, by now, a wealthy businessman and a media tycoon, with an elegant third wife and six other children.
Pakistani news channels reported that police arrested one of Taseer's guards, who allegedly confessed that he was angered by Taseer's recent public endorsement of a pardon for a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy.
That position had earned him threats from Islamist parties, who held a strike last week against proposed changes to the nation's controversial anti-blasphemy laws. Taseer stood by his stance, recently posting on the social networking site Twitter: "I was under huge pressure sure 2 cow down b4 rightest pressure on blasphemy. Refused. Even if I'm the last man standing."
The slaying came as the nation's main opposition party, which dominates in Punjab, held a news conference to demanded that the federal government implement a list of reforms within three days or risk collapse.
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