ISLAMABAD: A paraplegic death-row inmate will be executed in the coming days at the Faisalabad jail, his mother and an international rights group said on Saturday. Abdul Basit, 43, has been paralysed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair since contracting meningitis in prison in 2010.

According to his lawyer and family, he has been on death row since 2009 after being convicted of killing a man over a financial dispute in Punjab.

On Saturday, Basit’s mother Nusrat Perveen said jail officials had asked her to have a final meeting with her son on Tuesday before he is hanged the following morning.

“I am in a state of shock. I appeal to the president and prime minister of Pakistan to pardon my son on medical and humanitarian grounds,” she said.

The decision has been severely criticised by rights groups.

“It is bewildering that Pakistan has revived its appalling plans to hang a man who is unable to stand,” said Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve, an international human rights organisation.

Sara Belal, a lawyer at the Justice Project Pakistan legal aid group, condemned the decision to once again schedule Basit for execution.

Basit’s mother said she sent a mercy petition to the president weeks ago to pardon her son but received no reply.

“In September, jail officials were taking my son towards the gallows on his wheelchair when his execution was halted on medical grounds,” she said.

Ms Perveen said she saw rope scars on the wrists of her son when she met him a week after the halting of his execution.

“I am again waiting for a miracle to happen,” she said.

Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2015

Opinion

Editorial

Depopulating Gaza
Updated 07 Feb, 2025

Depopulating Gaza

The least feasible "solution" is the Trumpian plan for Gaza’s ethnic cleansing and occupation, which is a non-starter.
‘Pause’ in US aid
07 Feb, 2025

‘Pause’ in US aid

THE impact of the Trump administration’s decision to ‘pause’ all US foreign aid programmes, especially those...
Mobilising opposition
07 Feb, 2025

Mobilising opposition

POLITICS makes strange bedfellows. There has not, for quite some time, been a guest list as intriguing as the one...
No time left
Updated 06 Feb, 2025

No time left

Climate change concerns continue to remain a footnote as politics dominates national discourse, surfacing only when disaster strikes.
Karim Aga Khan
06 Feb, 2025

Karim Aga Khan

PRINCE Karim Aga Khan was a man who straddled various worlds and cultures. Beyond his role as spiritual leader of ...
Cotton production
06 Feb, 2025

Cotton production

PAKISTAN’S cotton crop is on the ropes. The crop output has been falling since FY15, when the country harvested a...