Eight convicts hanged in Punjab

Published October 13, 2015

MULTAN: At least eight convicted men were hanged on Tuesday for murder, officials said, bringing the total number of people executed since the moratorium was lifted on death penalty to more than 230 since December.

The executions - including two sets of brothers - took place in four cities in the province of Punjab: Attock, Gujrat, Multan and Bahawalpur.

Read: Resumption of executions

Two brothers, Mohammad Azam and Mohammad Aslam, were hanged in Gujrat; while another two brothers, Ghulam Qadir and Ghulam Sarwar, were executed in Bahawalpur for murdering two relatives, prison officials said.

Double murder convict Muhammad Ashraf was hanged in Attock, two men were executed in Multan, and the eighth was also hanged in Bahawalpur, the officials added.

Pakistan lifted its moratorium on the death penalty in all capital cases on March 10.

Supporters argue that the death penalty is the only effective way to deal with the scourge of militancy in the country.

But critics say the legal system is unjust, with rampant police torture, poor representation for victims and unfair trials.

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.

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