Peshawar fallout: Death penalty implementation may begin within week

Implementation of death penalty cases in Pakistan is expected to begin within a week with the country's interior ministry working on the process of wrapping up mercy appeals of convicts, media reported Thursday.

The interior ministry Thursday sent 120 mercy appeals of death row inmates to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who will forward them to President Mamnoon Hussain for a final decision.

The summaries will be sent back to the interior ministry following the president's decision to accept or dismiss them.

The dismissed appeals will then be sent to home departments of the province concerned. The home departments will seek the death warrants of prisoners from the sessions court judge concerned.

Interior ministry sources say that it may take up to one week for the sentences to be carried out.

Pakistan ended its moratorium on the death penalty in terror-related cases Wednesday. The decision to lift the ban was made in an all-party meeting following the Taliban attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar Tuesday that left 141 people, mostly children, dead.