ISLAMABAD (Web Desk) – The government is to resume executions for all capital offences, after earlier lifting a moratorium on the death penalty for terrorism offences only.
All condemned prisoners who have exhausted the appeals process and whose pleas for clemency are rejected, now face execution, officials say.
The partial lifting for terror offences followed a massacre at a school in Peshawar in December.
More than 8,000 people are on death row in Pakistan, human rights groups say.
The move, which ends a seven-year-long suspension of executions in Pakistan, was condemned as “irresponsible” by human rights law firm Justice Project Pakistan.
“We’ve seen time and time again that there is immeasurable injustice in Pakistan’s criminal justice system, with a rampant culture of police torture, inadequate counsel and unfair trials,” said executive director Sarah Belal.
“Despite knowing this, the government has irresponsibly brought back capital punishment.”
More than 150 people, all but nine of them children, died in the Taliban attack on the Army Public school in Peshawar.
Two terrorists awarded death penalty
A lower court in Lahore on Tuesday awarded death penalty to two terrorists. As per the ruling of the district and sessions court, Lahore, the terrorists, Malik Ashraf and Tariq, will be hanged on March 17 and 18, respectively.
