Black warrant: Murder convict hanged

FAISALABAD: In the first ever hanging at District Jail Toba Tek Singh, a convicted prisoner was hanged to death here on Thursday morning. The jail superintendent told The Express Tribune that Muhammad Siddique who was a security guard at a cinema at Kamalia was awarded death sentence by the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on charge of killing three persons while opening indiscriminate fire at a cinema in 2004. The apex courts upheld the decision of the lower court, while his mercy petition was turned down by the president of Pakistan, after which black warrants of Siddique were issued and the court fixed March 12, 2015 as the date for his execution. Jail authorities had made tight security arrangements for implementation of the death warrants.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 13^th, 2015.