MANSEHRA: Gallows are ready at the Mansehra district jail for 13 condemned prisoners from Hazara division.

The executions will take place after black warrants for these convicts are issued by the relevant trial courts.

Twelve of the condemned prisoners are currently kept at the Haripur central prison.

They all will be shifted to the Mansehra district jail following the issuance of black warrants for them.

Mercy pleas of most of these death row prisoners have already been rejected by the country’s president.

“Though gallows have been put up at the Haripur central jail, the 13 condemned prisoners from Hazara will be hanged at our prison,” Mansehra district jail superintendent Abdul Qayyum told reporters.

Sources said the superintendent of the Haripur central jail had written a letter to the inspector general of prisons to shift these condemned prisoners to the Mansehra jail.

They said 12 of those convicts were sentenced to death under Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code by courts in their respective districts, while Mohammad Afzal kept at the Haripur central jail was sentenced to death by a field general court martial in Lahore under the Army Act in 2007.

The sources said those convicts included Arif Khan of Abbottabad (sentenced to death in 2005), Khurram Malik of Mansehra (convicted in 1999), Khushal Khan of Abbottabad (sentenced in 2001), Mohammad Riaz of Haripur (sentenced to death in 2002), Sher Azam of Haripur (sentenced to death in 2010), Toti of Batagram (sentenced to death in 2000), Yousuf of Abbottabad (sentenced to death in 1999), Hafizur Rehman of Batagram (sentenced to death in 2009), Noor Zaman of Haripur (sentenced to death in 2006), Shabbir Ahmad of Haripur (sentenced to death in 2000), Gulrez of Mansehra (sentenced to death in 2007) and Sajjad Ahmad of Abbottabad (sentenced to death in 2000).

SIX ROBBERS HELD: The Mansehra police on Thursday claimed they had arrested six robbers, including five women.

“We have arrested a gang of six fraudulent people, including five women, who deprived many women of their gold in the garb of doubling their ornaments,” Saddar police station SHO Shaukat Khan told reporters here on Thursday.

He said inter-provincial gang of fraudulent persons was active in the city when the police acted on a tip-off and arrested them and seized the robbed gold ornaments.

The SHO said the arrested robbers used to go to houses where male members of the targeted families were out for jobs.

“These fraudsters used to offer women to double their gold ornaments and deprived them of all those ornaments by different tricks,” he said.

Shaukat said the gang was wanted in frauds in Punjab and other parts of country, too.

He said the police were investigating if the gang was involved in other crimes.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2015

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