PESHAWAR, March 24: Two minor boys are on death row after having been awarded capital punishment by a qazi court in Swat district.

The boys — Muhammad Rafique, son of Safdar Ali, and Sohail Fida, son of Fida Hussain — had faced trial for killing a boy named Muhammad Zubair on May 25, 2000, in Swat.

They were convicted on July 23, 2002, by an izzafi zila qazi (additional district and sessions judge).

Their appeal has been pending before the Peshawar High Court. Their case has fuelled debate whether death penalty could be awarded to a juvenile offender when the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance, 2000, has not been extended to that area (Swat being under the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas).

Under the ordinance, capital punishment could not be awarded to juvenile offenders. However, the ordinance has not been extended to Fata and Pata by the government.

Under Article 247 of the Constitution, in order to extend a law to Fata or Pata, separate notification has to be issued by the government, legal experts claimed. Thus far, the government has not issued the required notification for extension of the ordinance, claimed a lawyer dealing in cases of juvenile offenders.

The chairman of Voice of Prisoners, Noor Alam Khan, said that even if the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance had not been extended to Pata, death penalty could not be awarded to a minor offender under the Qisas and Diyat law.

He said that under section 306 of the Qisas and Diyat law, an intentional murder should not be liable to qisas when an offender was a minor or insane. He added that section 308 provided that a minor offender should only be liable to diyat and if he had attained maturity at the time of commission of offence he may also be punished with imprisonment up to 14 years.

Last year, the Peshawar High Court had commuted death sentence of a juvenile offender, Atif Zaman, to life imprisonment. He was sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court in Abbotabad for killing another boy.