New Delhi, May 18: Pakistan, in quick succession, hanged eight "hardcore terrorists" over a period of two days. The executions were announced by the Directorate of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the Pakistan military's media wing, in similarly worded press releases.
Four men were executed on Wednesday while another four were hanged today. The executions took place at an unspecified jail in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The four terrorists executed today were identified as Muhammad Ibrahim, Rizwan Ullah, Sardar Ali and Sher Muhammad Khan. Those executed on Wednesday were named Ahmed Ali, Asghar Khan, Haroon ur Rasheed and Gul Rehman.
According to the ISPR, all the eight men were active members of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and were tried under Pakistan's military court system, the same system that sentenced Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav to death.
Notably, the practice of trying civilians suspected of terrorism was renewed by two years in March this year, news agency reported on Wednesday. The military courts were first set up for a two-year period after the December 2014 attack at an army-run school in Peshawar in which more than 150 people, mostly children, were killed.
The eight terrorists executed on Wednesday and Thursday were accused of various offenses of terrorism, "including killing of innocent civilians, destruction of educational institutions, attacking Armed Forces of Pakistan and Law Enforcement Agencies", the ISPR said. The four men executed today were further accused of "destruction of communication/ electricity infrastructure".
According to Justice for Pakistan, a human rights law firm based out of Lahore, Pakistan has executed 457 people since the 2014 Peshawar attack.
According to news agency, Pakistani officials have maintained that the country's military courts serve as a deterrent against terrorism. However, human rights groups have raised questions about the secrecy with which the military courts function.
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