Pakistan Executes Four More Terrorists on Death Row

NDTV
Faisalabad: Four Pakistani terror convicts on death row were executed at a jail in Faisalabad today, after the government ended a moratorium on the death penalty earlier this week.

The executed convicts - Zubair Ahmed, Rasheed Qureshi, Ghulam Sarwar Bhatti and Akhlaque Ahmed - had been found guilty in a case related to an attack on former President Pervez Musharraf.

The executions were carried out in a district jail in Faisalabad after strict security measures were put in place.

The government ended the six-year ban on capital punishment for terror-related cases following a brutal terror attack on a school in Peshawar on Tuesday that killed 149 people, mostly children.

On Friday, two convicted terrorists - Aqil alias Doctor Usman and Arshad Mehmood - had been executed at the Faisalabad jail in Pakistan's Punjab province.

Aqil, who uses the name Doctor Usman, was convicted for an attack on the army headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009. Arshad Mehmood was convicted for his involvement in a 2003 assassination attempt on former president General Pervez Musharraf.

On Thursday, Pakistan's military chief signed death warrants for six terrorists on death row after the government ended the death penalty moratorium on Wednesday.

Pakistan's decision to relinquish a ban on the death penalty in terror-related cases came as the country's political and military leaders vowed to wipe out the homegrown Islamist insurgency following the attack on the army school.