Capital punishment for three convicts on hold

Karachi: Under a presidential order the capital punishment of three convicts who were on death row, was put on hold by deferring the execution till end September.

The three convicts, who are the activists of a proscribed outfit, were to be hung on 17th and 18th July.

The trio, Ataullah, Azam Khan, and Behram Khan were awarded death sentences for murdering and terrorism charges.

President Asif Ali Zardari’s order deferred the implementation till September 30.

The rights activists have lately been advocating the abolishment of the death sentence from the Pakistani Penal laws but so far the matter was pending at different stages.

In the year 2008 the Government of Pakistan announced its intention to abolish the death penalty. As a first step it wanted to commute the death sentence awarded to several thousand convicts.

Under an ordinance the death penalty was abolished for many crimes except 12 crimes.

While welcoming the government intentions the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan expressed concern that capital punishment remains on statute books for over two dozen offences and courts continue to give death penalty more or less on the pre-moratorium scale.

The HRCP noted with dismay that no concrete steps had been taken to realise the government’s commitment of 2008 to end the death penalty for all but the most serious offences.

It observed that the high incidence of crime in the country despite Pakistan being among countries with one of the highest rate of conviction to capital punishment in the world demonstrates that capital punishment has no special deterrent effect.