KARACHI: A militant of now the defunct Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan who had gunned down a retired police officer and his son on sectarian grounds around 14 years ago was hanged on Thursday morning.

Mohammed Saeed was hanged in the Karachi central prison after all his appeals against the conviction had been dismissed by the higher judiciary. The president had also turned down his mercy petition.

The SSP militant was sentenced to death by an antiterrorism court in April 2001 for murdering retired DSP Syed Sabir Hussain Shah and his young son, Syed Abid Hussain Shah, in an ambush near the Malir city railway crossing.

Standing outside the jail, some relatives and friends threw rose petals on the ambulance when it came out of the prison after the execution to shift the body to Shah Faisal Colony.

The funeral and burial of the militant remained peaceful, said Shah Faisal Colony SHO Naseem Ahmed Farooqi.

It was the second hanging of a militant at the prison after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted a moratorium on executions on Dec 17, 2014 in the wake of the devastating attack on Army Public School in Peshawar.

Earlier on Jan 13, Behram Khan was hanged for killing a lawyer inside a courtroom in 2003.

A jail official said they had arranged his last meeting with his family before hanging on Thursday. A district and sessions judge had appointed a judicial magistrate who supervised the execution at 6:30am.

Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2015

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