Two hung for rape, murder in Faisalabad

Sajid alias Taaroo was convited for murder while Muhammad Akhtar Urfand was sentenced to death in a rape case

FAISALABAD: Two men convicted of rape and murder were executed in Faisalabad Central Jail on Friday, officials said, the latest executions since the government lifted a moratorium on the death penalty for all capital crimes earlier this week

The convicts underwent a medical check-up before the execution amid tight security measures taken by jail authorities.

Sajid Ali and Muhammad Akhtar were executed in a prison in Faisalabad, prison chief Farooq Nazir told AFP.

Akhtar was convicted for the 1999 rape of a woman and murder of man, while Ali was sentenced to death for killing a woman in 2000.

Both were convicted under anti-terrorism legislation, which is frequently used in cases unrelated to terrorism to circumvent the cripplingly slow criminal courts.

On Thursday, a convicted prisoner was executed in the first ever hanging at District jail Toba Tek Singh.  Muhammed Siddique who was a security guard at a cinema at Kamalia was awarded death sentence by the Anti-Terrorism court on charge of killing three people while opening indiscriminate fire at a cinema in 2004.

Friday's hanging brought the number of executions in the country to 27.

Recently, the Human Rights Watch had requested Pakistan to take the death penalty off the table in the wake of the  government’s decision to completely lift the moratorium on death penalty.


Read: Take death penalty off the table, HRW tells Pakistan

HRW Asia Deputy Director Phelim Kine termed the government’s decision ill-conceived. Kine added that for Pakistan to “completely abandon its death penalty moratorium puts thousands of lives at risk.”

The government had initially lifted the ban on the death penalty partially in the wake of the Peshawar attack – which left over 130 children dead after a brutal massacre by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, leaving the nation in a state of shock – but only in terrorism-related cases.

Read: Govt lifts death penalty moratorium completely: officials