Pakistan
reportedly hanged seven prisoners on Tuesday, bringing the total number
put to death since executions resumed last December to 160, officials
have said.
The executions took place in several cities in the central province of Punjab including Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Dera Ghazi Khan, Sialkot and Bahawalpur, the AFP news agency reported.
All of those executed had been convicted of murder.
On Wednesday last week, the country also executed a man who rights groups say was tortured into confessing to a murder when he was still a minor.
Aftab Bahadur, 37, was convicted over the murder of a woman and her two children in September 1992, when he was 15, and had been on death row for almost 23 years.
Executions in Pakistan resumed in December, ending a six-year
moratorium, after Taliban fighters gunned down 154 people, most of them
children, at a school at Peshawar in the country's northwest.
Hangings were initially reinstated only for those convicted of terrorism offences, but in March they were extended to all capital offences.
The European Union, the United Nations and human rights campaigners have all urged Pakistan to reinstate the moratorium.
Amnesty International estimates that Pakistan has more than 8,000 prisoners on death row, most of whom have exhausted their appeals.
The executions took place in several cities in the central province of Punjab including Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Dera Ghazi Khan, Sialkot and Bahawalpur, the AFP news agency reported.
All of those executed had been convicted of murder.
On Wednesday last week, the country also executed a man who rights groups say was tortured into confessing to a murder when he was still a minor.
Aftab Bahadur, 37, was convicted over the murder of a woman and her two children in September 1992, when he was 15, and had been on death row for almost 23 years.
| Rights activists say Aftab Bahadur was wrongly executed and had urged Pakistan to halt his execution just a day before his hanging [AFP] |
Hangings were initially reinstated only for those convicted of terrorism offences, but in March they were extended to all capital offences.
The European Union, the United Nations and human rights campaigners have all urged Pakistan to reinstate the moratorium.
Amnesty International estimates that Pakistan has more than 8,000 prisoners on death row, most of whom have exhausted their appeals.
Source: AFP And Al Jazeera