ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) – Pakistani officials say they have executed 12 people in the country’s single-largest day of executions, after a nationwide ban on the death penalty was lifted.
The Home Minister for Punjab province, Shuja Khanzada, said authorities at several different jails in the province hanged 10 prisoners on Tuesday who had been sentenced to death in murder cases.
The superintendent of the main jail in the southern port city of Karachi, Qazi Nazir, said they had executed two people and handed their bodies over to family members.
Late last year, Pakistan’s prime minister lifted the death-penalty moratorium specifically for terrorism-related cases after a December Taleban attack on a school in Peshawar killed 150 people. Last week, in a controversial step, the government completely lifted the death-penalty ban for all cases.