Pak to execute 500 convicted militants in coming weeks

Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has said that nearly 500 terror convicts will be hanged to death within the next two to three weeks.

According to The Express Tribune, sharing with the media details of a national action plan against terror, Nisar said that the interior ministry has cleared these prisoners for execution and their mercy petitions have already been rejected by the president.

Nisar said that the decision to lift the moratorium on the death penalty for terrorism related charges was made before the attack on Peshawar's Army Public School, adding that Army chief General Raheel Sharif had taken up the issue with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif before the tragedy.

He also warned that the decision to go ahead with the execution of convicted terrorists could have consequences.

However, Nisar said that the country was in a state of war, and the army should not let its guard down if it wanted to avenge the victims of the Peshawar attack.

The Human Rights Watch has condemned the execution of two convicted militants by Pakistan as "a craven politicised reaction to the Peshawar killings" that left 149 people dead.

The group said that Pakistan indulged in "vengeful blood-lust" instead of prosecuting the attackers behind the Peshawar massacre, reported Dawn News.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif relinquished the six-year ban on death penalty in terror related cases two days after the Peshawar school attack wherein two militants convicted of separate terrorism offences were executed.

One of the militants, Aqil was convicted for an attack on the army headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009 and another named Arshad Mehmood was convicted for his involvement in a 2003 assassination attempt on former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf.