Pakistan to execute 500 terror convicts

Pakistan plans to execute around
500 militants after the government
lifted a moratorium on the death
penalty in terror cases, Sky News
reports.
It comes after Taliban gunmen
killed 149 people, including 133
children, in a school massacre in
the northwestern city of Peshawar
last week.
Six militants have been hanged
since Friday amid rising public
anger over the slaughter.
Around nine gunmen stormed the
army-run school on 16 December
taking teachers and students
hostage and killing them in
classrooms.
After the deadliest terror attack in
Pakistani history, Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif ended the six-year
moratorium on the death penalty,
reinstating it for terrorism-related
cases.
“Interior ministry has finalised the
cases of 500 convicts who have
exhausted all the appeals, their
mercy petitions have been turned
down by the president and their
executions will take place in
coming weeks,” a senior
government official told AFP on
condition of anonymity.
Of the six hanged so far, five were
involved in a failed attempt to
assassinate the then-military ruler
Pervez Musharraf in 2003, while one
was involved in a 2009 attack on
army headquarters.
Police, troops and paramilitary
Rangers have been deployed
across the country and airports and
prisons put on red alert as the
executions take place and troops
intensify operations against Taliban
militants in northwestern tribal
areas.
Mr Sharif has ordered the attorney
general’s office to “actively pursue”
capital cases currently in the courts,
a government spokesman said.
The decision to reinstate
executions has been condemned
by human rights groups, with the
United Nations also calling for it to
reconsider.
Human Rights Watch described the
executions “a craven politicised
reaction to the Peshawar killings”
and demanded that no further
hangings be carried out.
Pakistan began its de facto
moratorium on civilian executions
in 2008, but hanging remains on the
statute books and judges continue
to pass death sentences.
Before Friday’s resumption, only
one person had been executed
since then – a soldier convicted by
a court martial and hanged in
November 2012.

If dey r truly terrorists, den...