Pakistan has hanged 19 prisoners in the past two days, bringing the
total number put to death since executions resumed in
December to nearly 100.
A total of 15 went to the gallows on Tuesday, the most in a single day
since executions restarted in the wake of a Taliban massacre at a school, and a
further four on Thursday, officials said.
One execution took place in the southwestern province of
Baluchistan and the rest in Punjab, Pakistan`s most populous province.
Punjab prisons Chief Farooq Nazir said he did not have details of
individual cases and charges, but most of the 18 executed in the province had
been convicted of murder and had been on death row for between eight and 10
years.
In Baluchistan a convict was hanged at Mach prison on Tuesday for the
2004 murder of a man during a robbery at a house.
A moratorium on the death penalty had been in force since 2008, but
executions were restarted in December after Taliban militants gunned down 154 people,
most of them children, at a school in the restive northwest.
The moratorium was initially lifted only for those convicted of
terrorism offences, but in March was extended to cover all capital offences.
The European Union, the United Nations and human rights campaigners have
all urged Pakistan to reinstate the moratorium.
Human rights group Amnesty International estimates that Pakistan has
more than 8,000 prisoners on death row, most of whom have exhausted the appeals
process.
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