KARACHI: An Anti Terrorism Court (ATC) in Karachi on Wednesday issued the black warrant of deathrow prisoner Saulat Mirza. The execution of the former Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) activist is expected to place at 5:30am on March 19.

Earlier, jail authorities had submitted an application with an ATC in Karachi requesting it to issue a black warrant for the condemned prisoner.

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Sources in Balochistan Prisons Department confirmed that death warrant about the execution of Saulat Mirza has been received; following which security in and around the Jail has been tightened.

Mirza was sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court in May 1999 for murdering the managing director of then named Karachi Electric Supply Corporation Shahid Hamid, his driver Ashraf Brohi and guard Khan Akbar in July 1997.

He was moved along with four high-profile prisoners to the Machh jail, Balochistan, in April 2014.

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In May last year, Mirza’s brother petitioned the high court to move him to a Karachi prison.

He argued that his brother had been shifted to the Machh jail without the orders of the competent authority or any notification.

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The petition had been disposed of by provincial authorities on the pretext of security reasons.

Mirza had also submitted a mercy petition before the president which was rejected after it remained pending for a long time.

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Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain said: “The mercy petition of prisoners on death row should not be rejected on political grounds and only those genuinely deserving the punishment must be hanged, which should begin with the terrorists.”

Pakistan on Tuesday lifted its moratorium on the death penalty in all capital cases, after initially restarting executions for terrorism offences in the wake of a Taliban school massacre.

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Pakistan has hanged 24 convicts since resuming executions in December after Taliban militants gunned down more than 150 people, most of them children, at Peshawar's Army Public School.

(With additional reporting by Syed Ali Shah from Quetta.)