ISLAMABAD, Dec. 2 (UPI) — Pakistan executed four militants by hanging on Wednesday for aiding and abetting Taliban operatives who carried out a massacre on a Peshawar school last December in which 150 people, mostly children, were killed.
The men, identified as Maulvi Abdus Salam, Hazrat Ali, Mujeebur Rehman and Sabeel, were sentenced to death by a fast-track military court that has been criticized for its secrecy. The militants who carried out the Dec. 16, 2014, assault on the Army Public School died in a battle against Pakistani security forces the same day.
The massacre led Pakistani officials to begin a crackdown on militant Islamists, which led to the establishment of military courts to try suspects, including civilians, accused of terrorism. A six-year moratorium on capital punishment was lifted, leading to the executions of the Peshawar school massacre suspects.
The Pakistani Army said the executed men were members of the Toheedwal Jihad Group, a little-known faction of the Pakistani Taliban.
The men, who were executed at a jail in the northwestern city of Kohat, admitted involvement in the school attack and in other plots, such as attacks on Peshawar’s military airbase, fundraising for attacks and killing soldiers. Two other men were also sentenced to death and another was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Some of the worst militant violence in Pakistan has been experienced in Peshawar, which is near the Afghan border.
