2 death-row convicts were hanged to death in Machh and Faisalabad jails on Wednesday morning.
Mohammad Musa was hanged in Balochistan's Machh jail for murdering a man named Liaqat Ali in Quetta's Alamadar road area. He was convicted by a sessions court judge in 2007.
The appeals of the convict had been rejected by higher and superior courts and his mercy petitions was also rejected by President of Pakistan.
The home department issued his black warrant yesterday and Musa was consequently hanged today.
Another condemned prisoner Ali Gul was also scheduled to be hanged but he was pardoned by the victim's family.
This was the 1st hanging at Machh jail since former Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) worker Saulat Mirza's execution.
In Faisalabad's Central Jail, condemned prisoner Zulfiqar was sent to the gallows for murdering a taxi driver named Anwar in 2000 in the Thikriwala police station jurisdiction.
In 2000, an anti-terrorism court (ATC) had sentenced him to death under the anti-terrorism act (ATA), whereas his black warrant was issued yesterday.
Pakistan lifted its moratorium on the death penalty in all capital cases on March 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 December 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.
Source: Pakistan Herald, May 20, 2015
