FAISALABAD - Death warrants for convicted sectarian terrorist Ikramul Haq alias Akram Lahori have been re-issued, after he dodged his execution by winning an eleventh hour pardon from the victim’s family last week.
Lahori’s, who was to feel the hangman’s noose tightening around his neck on January 8, will now be punished capitally on January 17, at Kot Lakhpat Jail Lahore. Earlier, an anti terrorism court (ATC) declared a 'compromise agreement' between the two parties, as null & void for their failing to meet certain legal requirements.
The case is seen as a test of the government’s plan to execute convicted terrorists in the aftermath of a school massacre, claiming 150 lives in the country’s deadliest terror attack.
Ikramul Haq is a member of banned Sunni militant outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, who was sentenced to death by an anti-terror court in 2004 for killing a Shia Muslim three years earlier. He was set to be hanged in the eastern city of Lahore early Thursday, but his family came to a deal with the victim’s relatives on Wednesday night, Haq’s lawyer, Ghulam Mustafa Mangan, said. “The hanging was cancelled after we reached a compromise with the complainant’s family. They have pardoned my client,” Mangan said, without giving further details of the deal.
Murder can be forgiven under Pakistani law in exchange for blood money, while rival militant groups may choose to pardon each others’ convicted killers.
The Nation/Pakistan
