PAKISTAN: FOUR MORE SENT TO THE GALLOWS AFTER SCHOOL ATTACK

Pakistan executed four more militants after ending a six-year moratorium on the death penalty following a Taliban school attack that killed 149 people, officials said.
The hangings follow those of two convicted militants on Friday (December 19) after death warrants for the six men were signed the day before.
“Ghulam Sarwar, Rashid Tipu, Zubair Ahmed and Akhlaq Ahmed have been hanged for an assassination attempt on General Pervez Musharraf”, Pakistan's former leader, a prison official in the eastern city of Faisalabad told AFP.
Pakistan's decision to reinstitute executions was slammed by human rights groups, with the United Nations also calling for it to reconsider the move.
Two senior government officials of central Punjab province, where the executions took place, confirmed the hangings.
“The brutal killers were clearly frightened and sought mercy from the jail staff on their cruel, inhuman and un-Islamic act,” the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) said.
“They admitted that their brutal and inhuman acts had finally brought them to the gallows,” it added.
The government ended the six-year ban on capital punishment for terror-related cases following Tuesday's (December 16) bloody rampage on an army run school that killed mostly children.