KARACHI:
As the moratorium on executions goes, the gallows in Karachi Central Jail have been cleaned and cleared of dust. The white tracks that indicate the path prisoners take from the gate of the Phansi Ghaat to the gallows have been re-painted. A jail officer has even bought two ropes, each of which is 25 feet long.
The jail is prepared for the executions. And so is Altaf Ahmed, whose job is to pull the lever at the gallows. “If I am ordered to bring prisoners to the gallows, I will do it again,” said the man who appears to be in his late 40s. “When I come to the jail, I leave my child like heart at home and replace it with a jail one.”
It seems thrilling in the movies but seeing all this in real life is horrible, said Ahmed as he walked around the black wooden gallows that were built by the British in 1899. He has been working at the jail for the past 26 years and in this time he has pulled the lever, covered the condemned prisoners’ faces and tied the noose seven times.
His boss, Hukamdaar, who was the main hangman and executioner at this jail, retired and died a couple of years ago. Ahmed was then called to assist the last few executions at the prison. “My relatives don’t know that I have done this,” he admitted. “If word gets out, people will think I am a bad person and they will start calling me jallad [executioner].”
The last prisoner to be hanged in the gallows was Javed Malik, who was hanged in February 2008. Ahmed was the one to tie the noose around his neck. “It was a sad moment. No one from his family came to meet him or receive his body.”
The officer mentioned other executions that he was a part of. In the high-profile murder case of barrister Shakir Latif, who was murdered by his neighbour Shaikh Amjad, in DHA, Ahmed remembered that the convict donated his eyes. “We are human and do feel sad when the prisoners are executed,” said Ahmed. “They are here for years. We know them and talk to them.”
Death warrants pending in ATC
The death warrants of two condemned prisoners of Karachi Central Jail, Shafqat Hussain and Behram Khan, are pending at an anti-terrorism court (ATC) and are likely to be issued next week. While the other two, Attaullah alias Qasim and Muhammad Azam alias Sharif, belonging to Lashkar-i-Jhangvi have been ordered to be hanged on December 23.
On Friday, two ATCs on Friday were requested by the Karachi and Sukkur jail authorities to issue fresh black warrants for the four condemned prisoners after the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted the moratorium on capital punishment. The ATC-V issued warrants for Attaullah and Qasim on the same day while the ATC-III is still due to respond for Shafqat and Behram.
However, confusion persists as jail officials are not sure whether these inmates would be hanged. “Right now the orders say that those inmates who are terrorists are to be hanged,” said superintendent Kazi Nazeer Ahmed. “Both these men don’t have affiliations with any banned outfit.” Shafqat was sentenced to death for kidnapping and killing a seven-year-old boy in year 2004. Behram was sentenced to death for killing a lawyer on the premises of the Sindh High Court in 2003.
Meanwhile, Attaullah and Azam were sentenced to death by ATC-V in 2004 after they were found guilty of killing Dr Ali Raza Peerani due to his sect in June 2001. They were shifted from Karachi central jail to Sukkur in year 2013 for security reasons.
Since the executions are likely in the next few days, armed forces have taken control of the Karachi prison security.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 21st, 2014.
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@Rawalpindi jail.
@Dipak- Rawalpindi
Where was Bhutto hung by Zia? Was it Karachi or Lahore?