ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani Taliban has warned the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N)-led government to avoid executing two jailed militants next week or to face more violence.
Four convicted criminals, including two militants from the radical Sunni group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi who were sentenced to death in July 2004 after being found guilty of killing Shia doctor Ali Raza Peerani in Karachi in 2001, would be executed at the Sukkur Jail between August 20 and 22, a senior jail official told a foreign news agency.
“If the prisoners are executed it would amount to a declaration of war on the part of the PML-N’s (ruling party) government,” said a pamphlet distributed by the Taliban in the tribal regions of North and South Waziristan bordering Afghanistan.
In June this year, the PML-N government ended a five-year suspension on the death penalty as it was trying to display its resolve in fighting crime and militancy, a move condemned by the Pakistani Taliban as an act of war sure to trigger more violence.
The decision was also condemned by international rights groups such as Amnesty International.
