By Sajjad Malik
dpa
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan hanged 17 prisoners on Tuesday, the highest number of state executions in one day since the lifting of a moratorium on the death penalty in December.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced the resumption of executions in December, after a six-year break, following a massacre in Peshawar when Taliban rebels stormed a school and killed at least 150 people, the majority of them students.
An Interior Ministry official said 16 prisoners were executed in various jails in the eastern province of Punjab, while one man was hanged in the south-western province of Balochistan.
One of the condemned had murdered seven people in the same family.
The previous daily record for executions was 12, on March 17.
Pakistan has come under criticism from international and local human rights groups, but it has refused to halt the hangings.
According to the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, before Tuesday’s hangings, Pakistan had executed 76 prisoners since the lifting of the moratorium.
The Interior Ministry said there are around 8,000 prisoners on death row in Pakistani jails.