In the few weeks that the moratorium on death sentences had been lifted, Punjab issued 26 black warrants, of which none were for any terrorists.

Among these death row prisoners is Mohammad Amin, who was scheduled to be hanged on August 21, 2013, at Adiala Jail Rawalpindi.

Though a native of Peshawar, he used to live in Rawalpindi and was found guilty of killing one person during a robbery attempt in 1997.

Similarly, taking advantage of the moratorium waiver, Sindh obtain black warrants for four condemned prisoners including two terrorists.

On the directives of the Sindh home department, Sukkur jail authorities on July 31, 2013 obtained the warrants for two activists of the proscribed Lashkar-i-Jhangvi - Attaullah alias Qasim and Mohammad Azam alias Sharif, from an anti-terrorism court.

They were sentenced to death in 2004 by the court after it was proved that they had killed Dr Ali Raza Peerani.

The two men had targeted and critically wounded Dr Ali Raza Peerani on sectarian grounds in June 2001 as he came out of his clinic in Soldier Bazaar, Karachi.

The wave of target killings on sectarian grounds started in early 2000s, when operatives of the proscribed group targeted a number of Shia doctors in Karachi.

“Doctors are an easy target – easily visible,” said an official of the Pakistan Medical Association.

The jail authorities informed the ATC that the last stay order issued by the president in the case had expired on June 30, 2013 and since they had not received any further order to delay the execution, they asked for fresh black warrants for the convicts.

The court issued the black warrants for the condemned prisoners, directing the authorities to carry out the hangings under the supervision of area magistrates after fulfilling the legal formalities. Attaullah alias Qasim was to be executed on August 20, 2013, while Mohammad Azam alias Sharif on August 21, 2013.

After the D.I Khan jail break, the Sindh government shifted both the convicts along with several other prisoners from the Central Prison Karachi to Sukkur and other prisons of the province. This was done to maintain some level of secrecy, especially regarding the whereabouts of terrorists.

The other two condemned prisoners to be executed were Behram Khan and Shafqat Hussain, who were scheduled to be hanged in Karachi Central Jail on August 21 and August 22, 2013 respectively.

Convict Behram Khan was sentenced to death in 2003 by the ATC-III, which found him guilty of killing Advocate Mohammad Ashraf on April 15, 2003 on the premises of the Sindh High Court.

During the trial, it was revealed that Behram Khan and Sub-Inspector Pir Bux had actually intended to kill a lawyer, Qurban Ali Chauhan.

But in a case of mistaken identity, they killed Advocate Ashraf.

The court convicted Pir Bux of abetting the killing and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

Shafqat Hussain was sentenced to death by the same court in 2004 for kidnapping and killing a seven-year-old boy, Umair, the son of a car dealer, in April 2004.

The convict was a guard at a building that housed shops and residential flats. He kidnapped Umair as the child came downstairs from his second-floor apartment and took him to his (the guard’s) room.When the child insisted on leaving, the watchman hit him on the head with a club, killing him. Later he demanded a ransom from the boy’s father.

He was arrested when the police traced the phone calls he made for the money.

A total of 375 persons have been awarded the death sentence by the session courts or ATCs in Sindh, but the majority of them have been appealed against at the High Court or the Supreme Court.

Though Punjab has fewer death row prisoners who have been convicted of sectarian crimes, the province has the largest number of death row prisoners - around 7,000 prisoners out of a total of around 50,000. However, of these, 65 have had their appeals rejected by the SC.

There are 67 condemned prisoners in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while 400 prisoners who have been awarded the death sentences have appealed against the verdicts. Out of these 467 prisoners, 103 are terrorists while the rest belong to various categories.

In Balochistan there are 13 condemned prisoners, including sectarian terrorists, insurgents and criminals, while another 73 have appealed their death sentence in higher courts.