Haseeb Bhatti | Iqbal Mirza | Tassur Subhani | Mohammad Raza | Kashif Hussain

KARACHI/MULTAN/FAISALABAD/GUJRANWALA/RAWALPINDI – At least 12 male convicts were hanged on Tuesday, an Interior Ministry spokesman said, the largest number of people executed on the same day since an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment was lifted in December.

Multan

Two death row prisoners, Zafar Iqbal and Waqar Nazir, were scheduled to be hanged in Multan Central Jail but at eleventh hour, heirs of Waqar Nazir produced an agreement between the plaintiff and defendant parties before the jail authorities. The hanging of Nazir has subsequently been postponed.

The case will now be referred to the trial court for further proceedings.

Nazir was found guilty of killing a man during a robbery bid in 1996. A sessions court had awarded him the death sentence. The Lahore High Court (LHC) and the Supreme Court (SC) had upheld his sentence.

Zafar Iqbal was awarded the death sentence as he was found guilty of raping and murdering a six-year-old girl. An anti terrorism court (ATC) had declared him guilty in 1996.

Karachi

Two condemned prisoners, Muhammad Faisal and Muhammad Afzal, have been hanged to death after an ATC dismissed their compromise application, terming it as non-maintainable.

Both the convicts were found guilty of killing a man, Abdul Jabbar, during a robbery bid in Karachi’s Korangi area in 1998. The victim was killed upon offering resistance to the robbers.

An ATC had awarded the death sentence to the robbers in 1999, along with their third accomplice. The third accomplice had died in jail in 2006.

Faisal and Afzal were to be hanged on Mar 5, 2015, but their hanging was halted as their heirs moved the Sindh High Court (SHC) against their execution with a compromise application. The SHC had then referred their case to the trial court.

Faisalabad

Another condemned prisoner, Muhammad Nawaz, was executed in Faisalabad Central Jail. A sessions court had awarded death sentence to him in a dual murder case in 1996.

Nawaz had killed two relatives, Manzoor and Maqsood, over a minor dispute regarding water irrigation.

Rawalpindi

Two death row prisoners were also executed in Adiala Jail Rawalpindi. Malik Muhammad Nadeem Zaman and Muhammad Jawed had been found guilty in murder cases.

Zaman had killed his father, two sisters and a nephew in 1998, while Jawed had murdered one of his female cousins in 1997. Both had been convicted by sessions court.

Gujranwala

Muhammad Iqbal was hanged to death in Gujranwala for committing murder. He had been found guilty of killing Muhammad Sharif in 1996 by a sessions court.

The victim was among his in-laws and Iqbal had shot him dead during a family dispute.

Jhang

Three convicts of murders have also been executed in the District Jail Jhang.

Muhammad Riaz has been hanged for killing a man in 1995. The victim was a relative of the murderer and was killed over a family dispute. Riaz was convicted by a sessions court.

Muhammad Sharif and Mubashir Ali were executed for killing a taxi driver during a robbery bid. Both were declared guilty by an ATC in 1998.

The appeals of all the convicts were dismissed by the superior judiciary, while President of Pakistan Mamnoon Hussain has also turned down their mercy appeals.

Two more condemned prisoners, Rab Nawaz and Zafar Iqbal, were executed in a jail in Mianwali.

With the latest hangings, the toll of executions to have taken place in Pakistan since the resumption on Dec 17, 2014 has reached 39.

Pakistan lifted its moratorium on the death penalty in all capital cases on Mar 10.

Initially executions were resumed for terrorism offences only in the wake of a Taliban massacre at an army-run school in Peshawar which had claimed the lives of more than 150 persons, mostly schoolchildren, on Dec 16, 2014.

The United Nations, the European Union, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called on Pakistan to re-impose its moratorium on the death penalty. — Reuters/dawn.com