According to media reports, the government has imposed a moratorium on executions during Ramazan. This is good news. The government should extend the moratorium indefinitely. It is very painful to learn about a prisoner who not only got educated himself but also helped other prisoners to get university degrees. Such a person should have been rewarded but he was sent to the gallows. Another case is that of a Christian man who was arrested and sentenced as a minor. The HRCP claims that he was tortured into confessing his crime and finally hanged after spending 23 years behind bars.
I was a regular visitor to prisons and have had many opportunities to talk to the prisoners. Some admitted to their crimes; some say they were framed; some were innocent because they did not have money to arrange counsel, etc. It is better that the sentences of all death-row prisoners should be converted into life imprisonment and as long as they stay in prisons they should be trained to live their lives constructively.
Abid Habib
Mirpurkhas