Islamabad: Pakistani Army Chief General Raheel Sharif on Monday signed warrants for four militants convicted in the massacre of children at an army public school about a year ago, thus giving the green signal for their execution.
Earlier this month, President Mamnoon Hussain had rejected clemency appeals by the four on the advice of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
A press release issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) identified the four “hardcore terrorists,” who had been sentenced to death by a military court.
The ISPR named them as Maulvi Abdus Salam, Hazrat Ali, Mujeeb ur Rehman alias Ali and Sabeel alias Yaya.
This was the first sentence approved by the army chief following the Supreme Court’s August 2015 judgement giving legal cover to the establishment of military courts.
While all seven militants who took part in the school assault were killed by the security forces, the four whose black warrants were signed on Monday, had facilitated the attack.
Pakistani Taliban militants had stormed the Army Public School in Peshawar, capital of north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, on December 16, 2014, killing 144 people, mostly children.
The school carnage shocked the nation and in its wake military courts for speedy trial of terrorists were set up through amendments to the Constitution and the Army Act.
A day after the attack, the prime minister lifted a six-year moratorium on death penalty and later the country’s political leadership together with the military formulated a 20-point National Action Plan against terrorism.
Close to 300 death row prisoners convicted for murder and other crimes, have been executed since the lifting of the moratorium.
Pakistan has not accepted calls for re-imposition of the moratorium, made by the European Union and international human rights bodies. The death penalty is regarded necessary to deter heinous crimes.
