Death row: Shafqat’s family shows birth certificate

Copies sent to interior ministry, court; family claims convict was 13 at sentencing.

MUZAFFARABAD/ ISLAMABAD: Hours before his scheduled execution at dawn on Thursday (today), Shafqat Hussain’s family presented his birth certificate before the media in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

During a press conference at the Central Press Club, Shafqat’s mother, elder brother, younger sister, and Justice Project representative Yasir Shahbaz presented the birth certificate, adding that a medical examination should be held to confirm his age.

Shafqat was sentenced to death after being convicted on charges of kidnapping and murder.

The birth certificate, issued by the Local Government and Rural Development Department Kail Town Committee secretary lists his date of birth as October 1, 1991.

Shafqat’s elder brother, Manzoor Ahmad, said the birth certificate has already been mailed to the interior ministry, adding that copies were also given to the court.

He appealed for the government to stay his brother’s execution and reinvestigate the case or pardon him on the grounds that he was a minor. He said keeping in view the birth certificate, Shafqat Hussain was awarded the death sentence when he was 13-years-old.

Earlier, on Tuesday Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar had said that Shafqat’s family had not provided his birth certificate.

In response to a question, Manzoor said that people from the area they belong to often do not have birth certificates.

he family has also provided copies of their Computerised National Identity Cards to the Interior Ministry to verify the birth certificate.

Members of the family further expressed their helplessness as due owing to lack of resources they cannot travel to Karachi and meet the Shafqat.

“It will be judicial murder if they hang him,” his mother said.

Shafqat’s sister urged Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and President Mamnoon Hussain to use their powers to halt the execution.

Justice Project representative Yasir Shahbaz argued questioned why the interior ministry had not collected data from NADRA to verify his age.

“The jail authorities have not yet contacted the family to meet Shafqat”, he added.

Protest held in Islamabad

Civil society activists and representatives of different youth groups organised a protest in Islamabad against Shafqat Hussain’s execution.

Protesting at the National Press Club Areeba Shahid of Pakistan Youth Change Advocates said “We do not have a lot of time but we can still save a life by raising our voices against the injustice. Why do we always protest after we’ve lost - whether it’s in the form of the killing of schoolchildren or people at churches and imambargahs. There is still hope.”

Nearly 12 hours before the execution deadline, the protesters held placards and raised slogans in a last-ditch effort to help save Hussain’s life.

Tahira Abdullah, activist, held a clock as a symbolic gesture of the 5am deadline of the execution. She said the issue was not political but had become one. “This is a miscarriage of justice,” she said.

Shahab Siddiqi from Justice Project Pakistan is among the legal representatives of Hussain. “It is heartening to see that people care about [Hussain] and they care about justice so much. There is a mercy petition pending in front of the president and he can use it to halt the executions at least, if not grant mercy,” he said.

There is compelling evidence in front of the Ministry of Interior, he added, that shows that even if Hussain was not innocent, there are doubts around his age.

Citing the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance, child rights activist Meena Gabeena said that a minor could not be sentenced to death and so Hussain should be saved from the impending injustice.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 19^th, 2015.