A millionaire politician was suspended by his party yesterday after photographs were published of him apparently taking his family — including his five-year-old daughter — to fire an AK47 assault rifle at a military-style camp in Pakistan.

Photographs of Jahangir Hanif, 46, a Scottish National Party councillor in Glasgow who has campaigned against violent crime, were published yesterday by a newspaper beneath the headline: “Councillor Kalashnikov”. He admitted last night that his behaviour had been “foolish and inappropriate”.

His 17-year-old daughter, Noor, described how she and four of her siblings were driven in a blacked-out vehicle to an alleged training base in mountains near the Kashmir border and encouraged to fire the powerful weapon.

Video footage passed to the Glasgow Evening Times showed Mr Hanif’s youngest daughter, Sana, aged 5 at the time, being helped to fire the gun, the newspaper said. His son Ameer, now 14, also fired the Russian-designed rifle — the weapon of choice for Taleban insurgents in Afghanistan, with a firing rate of 600 rounds a minute — as did his daughters Zainab, 13, and Amina, 10, the paper added.

The revelation is a big embarrassment for the SNP, which has enjoyed a spectacular run of success since coming to power in Scotland last year and recently triumphed in the Glasgow East by-election .

When contacted about the video, Mr Hanif said “What?” before the line went dead, the Evening Times reported.

He later admitted: “The children were interested in it. I took them to a place in the mountains where you can fire AK47s. It’s not illegal in Pakistan. People in Glasgow have shotguns. I wouldn’t give them [the children] a pistol. I don’t think all the children fired it.”

In a statement released through the SNP, Mr Hanif said yesterday: “I regret that this happened and apologise — it was foolish and inappropriate.

“It took place over two and a half years ago, long before I became a councillor. I accept the actions of the party, and will wish to take part in the formal hearing on my return to Scotland.”

His daughter, Noor, who has not seen her father for two years and whose mother is in the middle of divorce proceedings from him, told the paper: “We were taken in a van with blacked-out windows. We were shown how to use the gun. We were shooting into the mountains. We all shot the gun. Someone helped Sana.”

The 17-year-old, who is hoping to study medicine at Cambridge University, added: “I wasn’t happy about it. We didn’t know why we were being taken there. I don’t know who the men were. They weren’t wearing uniform.”

The trip took place just before Christmas in 2005 during a family holiday to Pakistan to visit relatives. Mr Hanif’s son, Ameer, also claimed that he was taken to a shop that sold grenades, guns and knives during the trip.

Times Recommends

• Games industry sets its lawyers on downloaders
• Great Britain's golden summer is no fluke
• Scientists grow blood in lab