LAHORE: At least 62 persons convicted in heinous crime are due to be hanged in Punjab after Eidul Fitr.

Their hanging is stopped at present due to the special moratorium on death sentence in Ramazan, official sources told Dawn on Wednesday.

According to them, 120 convicts in heinous crime and 15 terrorists have been hanged till death in Punjab under the National Action Plan (NAP) made early this year in the aftermath of the Peshawar Army Public School attack.

Sources said courts in Punjab had convicted accused in 198 terrorism cases under the NAP. Of them, 48 each were awarded death sentence and life imprisonment.

The legal process of 24 convicted terrorists who were sentenced to death was completed and 15 of them were hanged. The remaining nine filed criminal review miscellaneous petitions in the Supreme Court and a decision was pending. Among them, seven are army personnel tried under the Army Act and they have taken the plea that they were denied the proper right to defence.

The major cases in which these nine persons were convicted include the Rawalpindi R.A. Bazaar suicide bombing and an attack on an army rescue team at the Chenab Bridge near Wazirabad.

The European Union (EU) has been asking Pakistan to reinstate the moratorium on death penalty and fully respect all of its international obligations.

“Effective implementation of the international conventions is a requirement under the European Union’s Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) Regula­tion,” a statement issued by an EU delegation mission to Pakistan in June said.

Rights activists in Pakistan too have been opposing death sentence especially under the NAP, asking it to re-introduce the moratorium announced in 2008.

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2015

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