Pakistan hanged 12 male convicts on Tuesday, an Interior Ministry spokesman said, the largest number of people executed on the same day since an unofficial moratorium on capital punishment was lifted in December, according to Euro news.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted a de facto moratorium on capital punishment on Dec. 17, a day after Pakistani Taliban gunmen attacked a school and killed 132 students and nine teachers. The slaughter put pressure on the government to do more to tackle the Islamist insurgency.
“They were not only terrorists, they included the other crimes, some of them were murderers and some did other heinous crimes,” the ministry spokesman said of the 12 executed at various jails.
The moratorium on executions had been in place since a democratic government took power from a military ruler in 2008.