QUETTA, Nov 15: The brother of Mir Aimal Kasi hailed him as a martyr on Friday as thousands of troops patrolled his native city amid fears of reprisals after he was executed in the US for the murder of two CIA agents.

“He is a martyr. His smiling face is still in front of me,” Naseebullah Kasi, told AFP, as he expressed shock that the execution went ahead.

“It was coming and I had little hope that the Supreme Court would stay his execution, but still the news was shocking,” he said.

The US Supreme Court rejected a last-minute appeal for a stay of execution and the governor of Virginia state, where the execution took place, refused Kasi’s request for clemency.

Hundreds of Kasi tribesmen and local community leaders poured into the family home in Quetta to console his relatives, said a cousin who asked not to be named.

Some 2,000 extra police and paramilitary troops were patrolling Quetta, which has been rocked by almost daily protests this week in the lead-up to the execution.

“Around 2,000 extra personnel have been posted in the city. We are on high alert, but so far the city is peaceful,” Balochistan police chief Shoaib Suddle said.

“The tribesmen have called a strike. A group of people tried to force the shopkeepers to pull their shutters down.”

Kasi in an interview broadcast shortly before his death urged his compatriots and other Muslims not to attack US citizens to avenge his execution.—AFP