ISLAMABAD: Shocked at the Taliban slaughtering 132 school kids in Peshawar, Pakistan Army Chief, General Raheel Sharif furiously tweeted “Asked PM Nawaz Sharif to hang all terrorists. More than 3,000 terrorists should be hanged in next 48 hours.”.
On Friday night authorities executed two top terrorists, first in series, at Faisalabad’s Central Prison.
This comes on the back of the government fast-tracking warrants of execution for convicted terrorists, moving swiftly on its promise to crack down on militants after a Taliban massacre of 132 schoolchildren Tuesday in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
Pakistans government fast-tracked warrants of execution for convicted terrorists with Prime Minister Sharif lifting a six-year moratorium on capital punishment Wednesday, vowing to eliminate terrorists in Pakistan irrespective of whether they targeted it or neighboring Afghanistan or India.
On Sharifs orders Thursday, the countrys ceremonial president, Mamnoon Hussain, rejected 17 mercy petitions that convicted terrorists on death row had filed earlier. The army chief of staff, Gen. Raheel Sharif also signed six so-called black warrants for the execution of soldiers convicted of terrorism offenses by military courts.
Officials said those 23 terrorists would be executed within days, and theyre likely to be followed by dozens more hangings at prisons around the country.
Aqeel alias Dr Usman, a former soldier of the armys medical corps, was executed in the first capital punishment carried out since in relation to an attack on the headquarters of the Pakistan Army in 2009 in Rawalpindi.
Additionally, Arshad Mehmood, convicted for an assassination attempt on former military ruler, General (retd.) Pervez Musharraf was also hanged. Both hangings were carried out at 9 p.m local time. This is unprecedented in Pakistans history where executions have so far been carried out at sunrise.
The black warrant for Dr Usman was signed by Army Chief General Raheel Sharif late on Thursday night, two days after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted the moratorium on capital punishment.
The premier lifted the moratorium a day after terrorists attacked Peshawar’s Army Public School, killing 141 people, most of them children.
Eleven soldiers had lost their lives in the Oct 10, 2009 attack when 10 heavily armed militants wearing suicide vests stormed the army’s General Headquarter (GHQ) holding off commandos for hours.
Usman, who was caught injured during the raid, was sentenced to death in 2011 by a military court which had awarded prison terms to others in the case.
Mehmood, who was a trooper, was among the five sentenced to be hanged for their role in an Al Qaeda-inspired assassination attempt on Musharrafs life in late 2003.
Musharraf, who was in power at the time, narrowly escaped the bid when two suicide car bombers rammed his motorcade on Dec 25, 2003, in Rawalpindi. Fifteen people were killed in that attack.
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