Pakistan has carried out its first executions since lifting a moratorium on the death penalty in terrorism cases following this week’s deadly attack on a school in Peshawar.
Convicted militants Arshad Mehmood and Aqil, who went by the alias Dr. Usman, were hanged on Friday, according to Pakistani military officials and sources from the Faisalabad District Jail, where the militants were being held.
Mehmood was hanged for his role in a December 25, 2003, assassination attempt on then-President Pervez Musharraf.
Usman was involved in an attack on an army headquarters in 2009, military sources said.
The executions were the country’s first civilian hangings since late 2008, according to Amnesty International and Pakistani media.
On Tuesday, members of the Pakistani Taliban scaled the walls of the Army Public School and Degree College and killed at least 145 people — 132 children, 10 school staff members and three soldiers, the Pakistani military said. More than 100 were injured, many with gunshot wounds.
Troops pushed through the complex building by building and killed the seven militants, military spokesman Gen. Asim Bajwa said.
The school massacre prompted widespread revulsion across Pakistan. A day after the massacre, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted a moratorium on the death penalty for terrorism cases.
In an email, the Taliban said it attacked the school to avenge the deaths of children allegedly killed by soldiers in tribal areas.
It accused the students at the army school of “following the path of their fathers and brothers to take part in the fight against the tribesmen” nationwide.
The school is in Peshawar, a city about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the country’s capital, Islamabad,
