15 people hanged in a day
22 April, 2015
LAHORE: Pakistan hanged 15 people on Tuesday, officials said, the largest number of people executed on the same day since an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment was lifted in December 2014.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted a de facto moratorium on capital punishment on Dec 17, a day after Taliban gunmen attacked a school and killed 153 people, most of them children. The killings put pressure on the government to do more to tackle the menace of terrorism.
Initially, it was only people convicted of militant offences who were executed but officials later said any prisoner on death row whose appeals had been rejected could be executed. The inspector general of prisons in Punjab, Farooq Nazir, told Reuters 14 people who had been convicted of ‘heinous crimes’ had been hanged in the province. One person was hanged in Balochistan, an official there said.
Two of the prisoners sent to gallows on Tuesday were executed at Kot Lakhpat Jail. Allah Rakha and Ghulam Nabi were hanged after found guilty of murdering two people separately.
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