Another prisoner moves PHC against death by hanging

PESHAWAR: Another death row prisoner on Tuesday moved the Peshawar High Court (PHC) to seek directives from the court to the government to introduce a less painful mode of execution instead of hanging to death.

Gul Wali, son of Said Ghaus, a death row prisoner imprisoned at the Haripur Central Prison, requested the high court to declare the mode of hanging to death as un-Islamic and unconstitutional as it was painful and against human values.

He is the second prisoner in Haripur Central Prison seeking a less painful mode of execution. In the first case, the high court had stayed the execution of Jan Bahadur in a case of similar nature. The case is pending before the high court for decision. The petitioner Gul Wali requested the high court in the petition filed through his lawyer, Muhammad Khurshid Khan to declare the mode of hanging to death as un-Islamic and unconstitutional.

When the single bench headed by Justice Muhammad Ibrahim Khan took up the case for hearing, the petitioner’s lawyer referred to section 368 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) that stated: “When any person is sentenced to death, the sentence shall direct that he be hanged by the neck till he is dead.”The petitioner’s counsel pointed out that there are nine modes of carrying out death penalties, including death by hanging, through firing squad, shooting in the head, by lethal injection, beheading, stoning to death, gas chamber, through electric chair, and pushing from height.

The lawyer pointed out that in the past in all the states of the US the mode of execution was through hanging.

Subsequently, he recalled, the use of electric chair was devised, which was considered less painful. However, he added that in 1921 the State of Nevada introduced gas chamber for carrying out death penalty.

He contended that in over 30 states in the US, the mode of execution now is through lethal injection, which is considered more humane and less painful. He stated that three injections are administered to a death row prisoner as the first injection ensures that a prisoner becomes unconscious, the second makes the body paralysed and the third one stops functioning of the heart.

Khurshid Khan maintained that in 28 countries the prisoners are executed through firing squad while in another 22 the convicts are killed by shooting in the head.

He stated that the colonial rulers had introduced death by hanging through the CrPC in 1898 and after creation of Pakistan this method was continued.

He argued that the court may issue directive that the mode of execution to be adopted should be less painful.

The petitioner Gul Wali was arrested in connection with a murder case registered at the Kohsar Police Station in Islamabad on June 1, 1995. He was sentenced to death by an additional district and sessions judge on February 23, 1997 in Islamabad.

The judgment was upheld by the Rawalpindi bench of Lahore High Court on November 14, 2002. Subsequently, the Supreme Court of Pakistan also upheld the verdict on January 28, 2011.

His review and clemency petitions were also rejected and black warrants were later issued for his execution.