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Pakistan executes 4 more militants after school carnage

Iran Press TV

Sun Dec 21, 2014 5:30PM GMT

Pakistani authorities have executed four more suspected Taliban militants, ending the country's six-year moratorium on the death penalty after a Taliban school massacre.

The hangings on Sunday came following the execution of two other convicted Taliban elements on Friday. Death penalty warrants for all six men had been signed on Thursday.

"Ghulam Sarwar, Rashid Tipu, Zubair Ahmed and Akhlaq Ahmed have been hanged for an assassination attempt on [Pakistan's former military chief and president] General Pervez Musharraf," said a prison official in the eastern city of Faisalabad.

"The brutal killers were clearly frightened and sought mercy from the jail staff on their cruel, inhuman and un-Islamic act," said the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP).

"They admitted that their brutal and inhuman acts had finally brought them to the gallows," it added.

Pakistan's military chief signed the death warrants for the six death-row inmates on Thursday after the government revoked the moratorium on Wednesday.

Two of the militants, Aqil alias Doctor Usman and Arshad Mehmood, were hanged in Faisalabad jail on Friday. Aqil was convicted for an attack on the army headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009 and was captured after suffering injuries.

Mehmood was also convicted for his involvement in a 2003 assassination attempt on Musharraf.

The Pakistani decision to resume the execution of death-row convicts came as the country's political and military leaders have vowed to wipe out homegrown Taliban terrorism following the recent school carnage.

On December 16, a group of gunmen reportedly dressed in military uniforms, stormed the Army Public School in Peshawar, going from classroom to classroom, shooting students and teachers.

Pakistan's move to reinstitute executions was censured by a number of human rights organizations, with the United Nations (UN) urging a reconsideration of the decision.

MFB/HJL/SS