PESHAWAR: A single-member Peshawar High Court bench on Tuesday reserved its order on a condemned prisoner’s application for stay order against his execution until decision on his petition seeking directives from the court to the government to introduce a mode of execution, which is not painful, instead of hanging to death.

Gul Wali languishing in the death cell of the Haripur Central Prison recently filed a petition requesting the court to declare the mode of hanging to death as un-Islamic and unconstitutional as it was painful and against human values.

Earlier, an identical petition was filed by another condemned prisoner, Jan Bahadur, in July last year, which has been pending with the court.

The court had stayed his execution.

Justice Mohammad Ibrahim Khan heard arguments of former deputy attorney general Mohammad Khursheed Khan, lawyer for the petitioner, on the application seeking interim relief of staying the execution of the petitioner until the final disposal of his main petition.

Murder convict has also sought court orders for execution which is not painful

Khursheed Khan contended that all appeals of the petitioner had already been rejected by the superior courts and he might be hanged anytime if his execution was not stayed by the court.

He contended that the main petition would become meaningless if his execution was not stopped forthwith.

The lawyer said his client was charged in a murder case in Islamabad on June 1, 1995, and was sentenced to death by a trial court on Feb 23, 1997.

He said the appeal of the petitioner was dismissed by the Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench on Nov 14, 2002, and subsequently by the Supreme Court Jan 28, 2011.

The lawyer added that the review petition of his client was also rejected by the apex court May 24, 2011.

He said the country’s president had also rejected his clemency petition Jul 28, 2011.

The lawyer said that in the earlier petition of another condemned prisoner Jan Bahadur, the high court had issued a stay order whereby the authorities were restrained from hanging him.

He stated that Section 368 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) provides: “When any person is sentenced to death, the sentence shall direct that he be hanged by the neck till he is dead.”

The petitioner requested the court to issue directives for ending the execution of death row prisoners through hanging calling it ‘cruel, painful, un-Islamic and inhuman’.

He added that the court might issue directive that such mode of execution should be adopted which was not painful.

The respondents in the petition are the provincial home secretary, superintendent of Haripur Central Prison, provincial law secretary, secretary to Council of Islamic Ideology, and district and sessions judge, Islamabad.

The petitioner said there were nine modes of carrying out death penalties, which included death by hanging, through firing squad, shooting on head, through lethal injection, beheading, stoning to death, gas chamber, through electric chair, and pushing from unknown height.

He contended that in the past, the mode of execution in all states of USA was through hanging but later, the use of electric chair was devised, which was considered less painful.

The petitioner however said in 1921, the State of Nevada introduced gas chamber for carrying out death penalty.

He said in over 30 states of the USA, the mode of execution was now through lethal injection, which is considered more humane and less painful.

He stated that through that mode three injections were administered to a death row prisoner- the first injection turns a prisoner unconscious; the second makes his body paralysed and the third one stops his heart functioning.

The petitioner said in 28 countries, prisoners were executed by the firing squad, whereas in 22 countries, prisoners were killed by shooting in head.

He added that the colonial rulers had introduced death by hanging through CrPC in 1898 and that after creation of Pakistan, the same mode was adopted.

Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2018