Two more LeJ activists to be hanged on Feb 3

Karachi
An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Saturday issued death warrants for two murder convicts belonging to banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) for February 3.
Attaullah and Muhammad Azam had been convicted for killing Dr Ali Razi Peerani in the area of Soldier Bazar in June 2001.
The ATC had awarded capital punishment to them, over which the two approached the Sindh High Court and then Supreme Court, but both the appellate courts rejected their appeals.
Finally, Attaullah and Azam appealed before the president, who dismissed their mercy appeals as well.
In 2013, the ATC issued death warrants for these two convicts, but due to the moratorium the two could not be hanged.
The ATC again issued death warrants against the two on December 19, 2014 for December 30, but the heirs of the convicts moved a petition in the Sindh High Court that had declared the issuance of black warrants as contradictory to the rules.
On Saturday, the ATC reissued death warrants against Attaulah and Abdullah for February 3.
The last execution in Karachi was carried out on January 15, as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi activist Mohammad Saeed alias Maulvi was hanged inside the Karachi Central Jail.
An anti-terrorism court had found the man guilty of shooting deputy superintendent of police (retd) Syed Sabir Hussain Shah and his young son Syed Abid Hussain Shah and sentenced him to death in April 2001. Saeed had killed both his victims on sectarian grounds in an ambush near the Malir City railway crossing.
An anti-terrorism court had issued black warrants for his execution on January 3 after the years-long moratorium on death penalty was lifted in the wake of the Peshawar school attack. Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had announced that more than 500 convicted terrorists would be hanged across the country.
Mercy appeal of the convict was also turned down by the president. Strict security measures were taken outside the Karachi jail and besides extra contingents of police, army and Rangers personnel were also deployed in and outside the prison premises.
So far 19 death row prisoner have been executed in the country since Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted the moratorium on death penalty on December 17, 2014, a day after the carnage in Peshawar. The moratorium had been in place unofficially since 2008.