Two convicts hanged to death in AJK

Muhammad Riaz and Mohammad Fayaz were sentenced to death for killing son of the Advocate General of AJK

MUZAFFARABAD: Two convicted prisoners were hanged to death Friday morning in the Central Jail Mirpur, some 180 kilometres away from the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) capital Muzaffarabad.

Security was tightened outside the Central Jail premises before and after the execution.

Police later handed over the bodies of the convicts to their families who were gathered outside the Central Jail Mirpur.

According to the police, Muhammad Riaz and Mohammad Fayaz were sentenced to death for killing the son of the Advocate General (AG) of AJK, Fazal Rabbani, in 2004 during a robbery at his residence in Mirpur City.

The convicts were residents of a village near Sara Alamgeer in Punjab’s Gujrat district and had been arrested a few days after the killing. Initially the convicts were sentenced to ten years imprisonment. However, the victim’s family followed up on the case in the AJK Shariat Court which awarded the death penalty in November 2005.

Before the execution, the convicts met their families, said the Inspector General Prisons, Abdul Hamid Mughal.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 14^th, 2015.