When govt hanged four militants at the start of December for involvement in a 2014 school massacre in Peshawar, a victim's father not just welcomed it, but demanded more extreme treatment of convicts. "They should have been hanged in public, just like they killed our children in broad daylight," Nasir Ullah told dpa. Ullah's 15-year-old son was killed when militants stormed a school in the north-western city on December 16, 2014 and killed at least 150 people, mostly students.
The attack shocked country, though the country was not a stranger to violence and had already suffered around 55,000 deaths since 2001 due to insurgents' violence, according to Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan. In a knee-jerk reaction to the attack, the government decided to lift a more than six-year-old self-imposed moratorium on the death penalty and hanged two militants - already in custody on different charges on December 19 - days after the attack. At first, the hanging penalty was only meant to be for militants. But, in March, the government began to apply the punishment for every death row prisoner, resulting in a wave of executions. So far, at least 310 convicts have been hanged, according to independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
More are in the line, as there are more than 7,000 death row prisoners in Pakistan, according to the Interior Ministry. But the upsurge in executions has sparked a debate about the efficacy of the extreme punishment in rooting out terrorism. Execution has failed to stop militancy in the country as "those wearing suicide vest cannot be afraid of death sentence, as they are already going to die," security analyst Hussain Soherwordi said.
But it might have a restraining act on those who have yet become militant, or on some smaller extremist groups who were supporting militants, he said. "I think Taliban, al Qaeda and those vowing allegiance to the Islamic State are not going to be affected by the executions, but ordinary criminals may think twice before killing someone," he said. Lawyer Ghulam Muhammad Chaudhry said state execution has helped in deterring crime, especially in revenge cases, since people feel justice has been done.
"A number of revenge murders are avoided, as heirs of victims feel that they can get the justice through courts when those involved in heinous crimes are hanged," he said. Chaudhry said that Pakistan needs to improve socio-economic conditions if it wants to abolish the death sentence, as there are several factors which prompt people to commit crimes like murder. Najam Uddin Chaudhry of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said that there is no evidence that executions deter crimes in the society.
"If hangings could stop people from committing crimes, then countries like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia should have been crime-free. If deterrence through execution theory had been correct, then there would have been no crimes in the world," he said.
Among the prisoners hanged so far, only around 10 per cent were convicted for militancy, while the rest were involved in murders, according to an official of the ministry of interior.
Several of them could be victims of a faulty justice system based on colonial-era laws devised by British authorities for specific purposes, said Najam Uddin Chaudhry. "Torture, faulty investigation and bribery are rampant in the judicial system. How can a person be executed when there is no guarantee that he was given fair trial," he said.
One possible such victim was Shafqat Hussain, hanged in August despite protests by human right bodies that he was a minor when convicted and could not be hanged under the laws of Pakistan.
Hussain's family said that he was forced to admit to the crime of killing a 7-year old boy due to brutal torture by police. But the government rejected concerns about age and the alleged forced confession. Paraplegic Abdul Basit narrowly escaped the noose last month when his execution was postponed at the 11th hour after widespread criticism by human rights groups. Convicted for a murder in 2009, Basit suffered from tubercular meningitis infection he contracted in prison in 2010, which left him immobilised below the waist. He was spared finally when President Mamnoon Hussain intervened, saying that the law was silent on how to execute a man who could not stand up for the noose.
Under the laws, the prisoner should be healthy enough to stand up to take the noose. But such procedural issues should not be used to avoid hanging criminals, lawyer Chaudhry said. "Not only our laws, but also Islam says that a murder should be hanged unless forgiven by the heirs of the victims," he said.
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