Pakistan executes 4 death-row prisoners in different jails of Punjab

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan today hanged four convicts in different jails in Punjab province, taking to 66 the number of executions since the country reversed the self-imposed moratorium on the death penalty in December.

The prisoners were executed in jails of Attock, Mianwali, Sargodha and Rawalpindi early this morning.

Sargodha Central Jail witnessed its first ever execution in 105 years since its establishment in 1910 when prisoner Mohammad Riaz was hanged.

He was sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court for killing a man during a robbery in 2000.

Mohammad Ameen, a prisoner convicted for murdering a person on personal enmity, was executed in Adiala Jail Rawalpindi, near capital Islamabad.

Another prisoner Hubdar Shah, convicted for double murder of two persons, was hanged in Mianwali Central Jail.

Akramul Haq, who was convicted for kidnapping a three-year-old girl, was hanged in Attock Jail.

Pakistan had already hanged 62 prisoners since lifting moratorium on the death penalty in December last year after Taliban attack at an army-run school in Peshawar killed more than 150 people, mostly students.

There are more than 8,000 death row prisoners in the country.

The United Nations, the European Union, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have urged Pakistan government to re-impose the moratorium on the death penalty.