SAHIWAL/SARGODHA: Two death row convicts were sent to the gallows in Sahiwal and Sargodha on Thursday morning.
Convict Muhammad Hanif, belonging to Okara District, was hanged in Sahiwal Central Jail for the murder of Assistant Sub-Inspector Ehsanullah during a police combat in 2006. Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) 4 sentenced Hanif to death in 2007. The convict's appeals in the Lahore High Court (LHC) and Supreme Court were dismissed in 2009. His appeal to the president of Pakistan this year was also dismissed and Hanif was hanged today.
In Sargodha District Jail, convict Gul Muhammad was sent to the gallows for murdering his brother-in-law Shahbaz in Khushab District in 1999 over personal disputes. the convict was sentenced to death in 2000 by Additional Sessions Judge Manzoor Hussain in Khushab.
Pakistan lifted its moratorium on the death penalty in all capital cases on March 10.
Initially executions were resumed for terrorism offences only in the wake of a Taliban massacre at an army-run school in Peshawar which had claimed the lives of more than 150 persons, mostly schoolchildren, on December 16, 2014.
The United Nations, the European Union, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called on Pakistan to re-impose its moratorium on the death penalty.
