17 convicts hanged in nine cities across Pakistan

17 condemned prisoners were sent to the gallows in various jails on Tuesday morning. —AP/File
17 condemned prisoners were sent to the gallows in various jails on Tuesday morning. —AP/File

GUJRANWALA/FAISALABAD/SIALKOT/MULTAN/SAHIWAL/GUJRAT/LAHORE/RAWALPINDI/QUETTA: 17 condemned prisoners were sent to the gallows in various jails on Tuesday morning, a day which marks the highest number of executions in the country since the moratorium on death penalties was lifted.

In Central Jail in Gujranwala, convicts Inayatullah, Zafar Iqbal and Muhammad Latif were hanged. Inayatullah was convicted for the murder of seven people from the same family in Wazirabad, whereas Iqbal and Latif were hanged for shooting four people including one woman over a petty issue.

In Faisalabad, two convicts Muhammad Hussain and Nizamuddin were hanged in Central Jail whereas Muhammad Azam was hanged in District Jail. Hussain and Nizamuddin were convicted for the murder of three people in 1998 while Azam was convicted for murdering seven people from one family in 2004.

Read: Twelve convicts executed in various jails across Pakistan

In Sialkot Jail, convicts Luqman and Saleem were sent to the gallows for the gang-rape of a minor in Qila Kalarwala in 1999. Their death warrants were issued last week by a special Anti-Terrorism Court in Gujranwala.

Sultan Alias Raja was hanged in Multan's Central jail committing murder in 2000 whereas, in Sahiwal's Central Jail a convict named Liaqat was hanged for murdering a man named Bilal in 1998.

Meanwhile, Convict Azhar Mehmood was hanged in Gujrat District Jail for the murder of a man named Shan Ali Tarrar in 1995 over minor arguments.

Also read: Five prisoners hanged in Punjab jails

In Lahore's Kot Lakhpat Jail, two convicts were hanged for murder whereas in Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail, three were sent to the gallows also for murder. A convict named Riaz Ahmed was also hanged for murder in Quetta's Mach jail.

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.

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