Daily Times

Initially, executions were carried on terrorism related charges but, in the wake of the Peshawar tragedy, the government of Pakistan decided to lift the moratorium on March 10 of this year and reinstated this heinous punishment for all death penalty offences. The PPP-led coalition government, in 2008, had placed a moratorium on executions following pressure on the government by the European Union and human rights’ groups.
On April 21, 17 inmates were executed in Pakistan, the highest number of executions in a single day since the reversing of the country’s self imposed ban. The prisoners were executed in different jails in Punjab and Balochistan. Sixteeb inmates were executed in cities like Faislabad, Gujranwala, Gujarat, Lahore, Multan, Sialkot and Rawalpindi while one execution was carried out in Machh Jail, Balochistan. According to different news agencies, Iqbal and Latif were hanged for shooting four people, including one woman. Three men, Muhammad Hussain, Nizamuddin and Azam, were hanged in the central jail in Faisalabad. The first two were convicted for the murder of three people in 1998 while Azam was convicted for murdering seven people from one family in 2004. Another three persons were hanged in Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail for murder. Separately, in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail, two convicts were hanged for murder. Two men were hanged in Sialkot jail for the gang-rape of a minor in 1999 while one person was hanged in Multan’s central jail for committing murder in 2000. Another man was executed in Sahiwal’s central jail for murdering a man in 1998, while convict Azhar Mehmood was hanged in Gujarat’s district jail for murder in 1995. A convict named Riaz Ahmed was also hanged for murder in Machh jail. There are about 8,000 death row prisoners in Pakistan. Out of 8,000 death row prisoners many of them are innocent and have been falsely implicated in criminal cases but are still languishing there. This is all due to the ineffective criminal justice system of Pakistan where people with deep pockets easily manipulate prosecution evidence, implicating innocent people. The investigations of the police before the commencement of a criminal trial fabricate the whole scene in order to mislead the courts and to save the people with power and money.
Supporters of the death penalty in Pakistan say that it is the only way available for the government to deal with the scourge of terrorism and militancy in the country. However, human rights groups across the world and within Pakistan categorically oppose the reinstatement of the death penalty in Pakistan. They have further contended that executing prisoners is no answer to dealing with terrorism in Pakistan. There is a need to revise national and international policies in order to deal with terrorism and militancy.
My contention on the opposition to execution is that right to life is embodied as a natural right in Article 9 of the Constitution of Pakistan and in plain wording it can be said that no one can take that right to life, not even the courts that provide justice. Taking away the right to life by execution is unnatural and inconsistent with the principles of natural justice. In any civilised society execution is seen as barbaric and inhumane. Since the lifting of the moratorium the ratio of crime in Pakistan lies at the same level where it was before the lifting of the moratorium. Advanced countries now have reached the conclusion that capital punishment is no answer to decreasing the crime ratio.
My second contention is that the death penalty is irreversible; once a prisoner is executed, it is all over. Pakistan is a country where a number of legal mistakes can happen and the courts can also commit mistakes while conducting a criminal trial. The prevailing corruption in society has also belittled the criminal justice system in the country whereby chances of the innocent being declared guilty have increased manifold.
My last and biggest contention is that there is a need to develop non-penal social engineering in Pakistan. Instead of executing prisoners, all stakeholders should come together to a point where they provide rehabilitation to prisoners, even to condemned prisoners in jails so that when they are released from jail they play a positive and responsible role in society. Keeping them in jail for years actually makes them hardened criminals and puts them under immense mental torture. Advanced countries like the UK, Germany and France are no longer party to the death penalty. They abolished the death penalty years ago and now do not intend to reinstate it in their criminal justice systems. Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and China are amongst those countries that execute thousands of prisoners every year. The non-penal social engineering doctrine in Pakistan — even in countries where the death penalty is a part of the criminal justice system — makes the system of punishment a bit more humane. Prisoners languishing in violent and notorious jails are denied basic rights and jail staffs treat them like animals. They should have dignity too.
In culmination, I submit that government officials seriously reconsider their decision of lifting of the ban on the moratorium. Executing condemned prisoners is no answer to defeating terrorism. There is a need to revise national and international polices pertaining to foreign policy and internal security. The state of Pakistan now also has to realise that only secularism is a solution for the sorting of extreme forms of militancy and terrorism. Pakistan’s action plan to combat terrorism seems plausible to the general public but it has no ingredient for bringing peace and harmony to Pakistan in the long run. It is a mere political slogan that the national action plan will bring peace and harmony.

The writer is an advocate of the High Court. He can be reached at greenlaw123@hotmail.com