PAKISTAN: ZARDARI STAYS ALI'S EXECUTION FOR 14 DAYS

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari stayed the execution Zulfikar Ali for 14 days to give one last chance to his two daughters to seek a compromise with the aggrieved families. Zulfikar Ali, 38, who recently did his MA (Political Science) from his jail cell and is currently doing an MBA, was to be hanged October 8. President Zardari delayed Zulfikar's execution on the written request of his two daughters, Noor Fatima, 11, and Fiza Ali, 9. They submitted the application to the Presidency after they were refused a meeting. The two will now go to the houses of those two persons who were killed by their father during a shootout in Barakahu, a suburb of Islamabad, in 1998. Zulfikar and his wife, who died of cancer in 2006, were unable to hire a lawyer due to poverty. Two MNAs of PML-N, Dr Tariq Afzal Chaudhry (Islamabad) and Suriya Asghar (Narowal), vowed to help these girls strike a compromise with the aggrieved families. Other human rights groups are also said to have committed to join the girls when they visit the families of the victims. According to Iqbal Haider, the convict is too poor to pay any amount of "Diyat" or compensation.