TANVEER Ahmed, a taxi driver who travelled from England to Glasgow to carry out the “brutal, barbaric and horrific” murder of shopkeeper Asad Shah because he believed he committed blasphemy, has become a cult figure among extremists in Pakistan.

Tanveer Ahmed, 32, from Bradford, was sentenced to a minimum of 27 years in Scotland but his crime has inspired a rising number of Pakistanis who see him as a “defender of Islam” for having killed someone they believe disrespected the Prophet Muhammad.

Now it appears Ahmed has been rallying support for his anti-blasphemy movement back in Pakistan from behind bars as around 400 of his followers gathered outside his family’s home in the city of Mirpur, in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, for a rally in his honour, chanting slogans praising Ahmed as “brave” and “courageous”.

Ahmed stabbed Shah to death, who belonged to the persecuted Ahmadi sect, because he believed he was committing blasphemy by uploading online videos in which he claimed to be a prophet.

Watching a clip featuring Shah on his phone as he made his way to Glasgow, Ahmed was heard in a phone message saying: “Listen to this guy. Something needs to be done. It needs nipped in the bud.”

He pulled out a knife and stabbed the 40-year-old, who he did not know, at his store in Glasgow’s Shawlands area on March 24. Sunni Ahmed claimed he acted to defend the “honour” of the Prophet Muhammad.

Jailing Ahmed at the High Court in Glasgow last August, judge Lady Rae said it was a “brutal, barbaric and horrific crime”. She said Ahmed even seemed proud of the murder, calling it an “execution”.

Ahmed has now been banned from making any phone calls from prison after hate messages surfaced online and is not even permitted to phone his wife in Bradford.

Details of the ban emerged after Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh demanded an investigation into recordings circulated by the extremist supporters of Ahmed in Pakistan.

The Scottish Prison Service said the call-ban will be in place while the recordings, which were made in Urdu, are translated and investigated.

Hardline cleric Khadim Rizvi is one of the leading figures in Labaik Ya Rasool Ullah, and is the most prominent supporter of Ahmed. He uses images of Ahmed to promote his rallies and talks.

Over the past few months a Facebook page run by Rizvi’s followers has released a number of audio messages from Ahmed whilst in jail.

The messages included Ahmed justifying his own actions, and repeating slogans that “the penalty for blasphemers is for their heads to be cut off”.

One man attending the rally outside Ahmed’s home, told the BBC: “Because of what he did, the whole of Pakistan knows who he is.”

Another, using the term Ghazi or warrior, said: “You should close your eyes, raise your hand towards the sky and pray, making Ghazi Tanveer your representative.”

The event was organised by the anti-blasphemy religious lobby group Labaik Ya Rasool Ullah (Here I am present, o Prophet of Allah).

The same group has championed another killer – Mumtaz Qadri – who in 2011 shot dead a high profile Pakistani politician for trying to reform the country’s blasphemy laws.

After Qadri was executed last year, tens of thousands of his supporters attended his funeral, and a shrine housing his tomb has been built in Rawalpindi.

Rizvi told the BBC that support for Ahmed was not as widespread as that for Qadri but that Ahmed was held in particularly high esteem for having killed someone accused of blasphemy in a non-Muslim country.

He said that until recently he would talk to Ahmed on the phone “every couple of weeks”, and that he was proud of his friendship with him.

“I’m proud of the fact that we are in contact – and this pride will remain until the day of judgement and beyond,” he said.

Rizvi added that his conversations with Ahmed included discussions on the topic of blasphemy, and chants in support of the Prophet Muhammad.

He said that he had not spoken to Ahmed since the prison ban.