Pakistani student Amer Cheema hung himself in his cell after attempting to murder the publisher of Germany’s Die Welt, for printing the Danish Mohammed cartoons. And yesterday in Pakistan, a tiny handful of extremists hijacking a peaceful religion more than 50,000 followers of the Religion of Peace™ attended Cheema’s funeral, giving him a hero’s send-off: Pakistani Student’s Funeral Draws 50,000. (Hat tip: In the Bullpen.)

SAROKI, Pakistan May 13, 2006 (AP)— More than 50,000 people turned out Saturday for the funeral of a Pakistani student who died while under arrest in Germany for allegedly planning to attack a newspaper that published caricatures of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

Amer Cheema, 28, was arrested in March as he tried to enter the office of Axel Springer, the publisher of Die Welt.

The newspaper was one of several in Europe that reprinted the caricatures in a show of support for freedom of expression after their first publication in a Danish newspaper angered Muslims.

The reprinting touched off even more outrage in the Islamic world, especially in Pakistan, where tens of thousands of people took to the street in often violent protests.

Islamic tradition bars drawings of Muhammad to discourage idolatry.

According to German police, Cheema hanged himself in his Berlin cell on May 3 using a noose made from his clothes. On Saturday, his coffin arrived at Lahore airport from Germany and a government helicopter carried the body to Cheema’s family in Saroki, a village 90 miles northwest of Lahore.

Chanting “God is great!” and “We are slaves of Prophet Muhammad!”, more than 50,000 people attended the funeral, dispersing peacefully afterward, said Fayyaz Bhutta, the district mayor.