Eight convicts hanged in Pakistan’s Punjab

The executions were carried out in four cities of the largest province of Punjab – Gujrat, Bahawalpur, Multan and Attock, an official of interior ministry said.

The government rejected these calls, saying it wanted to hang all 8 500 death row convicts across the country.

Two brothers were executed in district jail Gujrat, while separately, another two brothers were sent to the gallows in Bahawalpur. In Gujranwala district jail, two brothers were hanged for murder. Ghulam Qadir and Ghulam Sarwar were sent to gallows for killing two persons including a woman in 2002. Death row prisoner Thanidar alias Thindo was hanged for murdering two persons including his wife and father in law in 2001. Convict Muhammad Ashraf was hanged till he was dead for murdering a father and his son in Attock central jail.

Initially executions were resumed for terrorism offences only in the wake of a Taliban massacre at an army-run school in Peshawar which claimed the lives of more than 150 people, mostly school children, on December 16, 2014. Following the debate, the Prime Minister suspended the moratorium on death penalties and important militants belonging to banned outfits were also hanged.