RAWALPINDI: Two convicts in non-terrorism cases will be hanged in the Central Jail Adiala early on Tuesday.

Officials said they had received the death warrants of Malik Mohammad Nadeem Zaman and Mohammad Javed after their mercy petitions were rejected by the president.

Mohammad Javed, 45, a resident of Kalar Syedan, was sentenced to death for murdering his female cousin on May 25, 1997.

Mohammad Saddique, the elder brother of Javed, told Dawn that he along with 10 other family members and friends held a last meeting with him on Monday.

The convicted prisoner in his last will asked his brother for a patch-up with the heirs of the deceased woman and offered his agricultural land as he had no other resources to pay the blood money.

“We have been trying to convince the heirs of the deceased but the chances of a patch-up seem remote.” Saddique said he was afraid of the heirs of the deceased woman who had been threatening him that they would not allow the burial of his brother’s body in the village.

On the other hand, Nadeem Zaman’s family members also had their last meeting with him in the Adiala jail on Monday.

Zaman, 28, was convicted for murdering his father, two sisters and a nephew in 1998 in the limits of the Airport police.

Human rights activist Tahira Abdullah told Dawn: “The basic aim of lifting the moratorium on executions was to eliminate terrorism in the country but it is being observed that a selective application of the death penalty is being carried out. For example, the self-confessed killer of former Punjab governor Salman Taseer is alive and even the Islamabad High Court removed the terrorism charges against him.”

On the other hand, she added, Shafqat Hussain was only 14 years old when he was imprisoned in a murder case and is scheduled to be hanged on March 19 in Karachi.

Hussain, who is now 23 years old, was arrested and sentenced to death in 2004 for kidnapping and killing a seven-year-old boy from an apartment building in Karachi.

A senior official of the prison department told Dawn that the two convicts would be hanged at 5:30am on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, five other convicted prisoners in murder cases will be hanged in the Adiala jail on Wednesday.

Superintendent of police Saddar circle Sardar Ghayas Gul told Dawn that extra police personnel and Elite Force commandoes would be deployed around the prison early on Tuesday.

It may be noted that the government lifted the moratorium on executions for convicted terrorists in the wake of the Taliban attack on the Army Public School Peshawar. Later, it also reinstated the capital punishment for all those offences that entitled the death penalty.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2015

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