Off the wire
• New York City aware of IS video, sees no specific threat  • Roundup: Civil society groups demand to be heard in building ASEAN  • Five Tianjin officials investigated for graft  • Los Angeles Auto Show sees debut of 50 new models  • France faces risk of chemical, biological attacks: PM  • ASEAN political-security community blueprint fully implemented: Malaysian official  • NW China prefecture collects over 3,000 ancient Tibetan medicine books  • Hong Kong stocks close 1.41 pct higher  • China to enhance exchanges with Myanmar parties including NLD  • China's central bank cuts SLF interest rates for local branches  
You are here: 　 Home

Pakistan PM wants mercy petitions in school attack rejected

Xinhua, November 19, 2015 Adjust font size:

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif Thursday advised the president to reject the mercy petitions of all four convicted terrorists of the brutal attack on an army-run school that had killed nearly 150 students and staff members last year.

The military courts have awarded death sentence to four suspects of the Taliban attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar in December 2014.

The army chief has already approved the death penalty and the convicts had the right of appeal to the president.

While performing his constitutional obligation under the constitution, the prime minister said that Pakistan has been changed after the Peshawar tragedy, the prime minister's office said in a statement.

"The brutal and merciless killings of our children convinced us that the perpetrators of such crimes do not deserve any mercy," an official statement quoted the prime minister as saying.

Immediately, after the Army Public School tragedy, the state, the elected representatives in the Parliament, all political parties and every single state institution unanimously decided to bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice even if required amendments in the laws.

The prime minister said that "Establishment of Military Courts through these amendments has enabled us to bring the perpetrators of most heinous crimes to justice in a short span of time."

"The death sentence awarded to the four terrorists, in fact, was the will of the entire nation. By recommending the mercy petition of these terrorists I am also but reflecting the will of the people and honouring the promise made to the families of my children who lost their lives in the Army Public School tragedy," Sharif said.

The banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had quickly claimed responsibility as a group of suicide bombers entered the school and started indiscriminate firing at the students, teachers and staff members.

Nearly 140 students were among those mercilessly killed in the attack that had shocked Pakistan and the whole world.

The military says the TTP chief Mullah Fazlullah had personally directed the attack, who security officials insist operates from the Afghan side of the border. Enditem