Pakistan hangs 200th inmate

Pakistan has hanged 200 death row prisoners since lifting a six-year moratorium on executions late last year, officials said on Thursday.

"The 200 mark was reached yesterday," an official at the Interior Ministry told dpa, wishing not to be named.
The Independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) reported that 196 convicts had been hanged through Tuesday.
At least four more hangings took place at jails in the central province of Punjab on Wednesday, bringing the total to 200, officials at the prison department said.
The government lifted a moratorium on capital punishment in December 2014 after Taliban militants killed 136 children at a school in Peshawar.
The executions were again halted for the month of Ramadan when Muslims across the world fast from dawn to dusk. It ended on July 18.
Pakistani authorities have hanged as many as a dozen death row prisoners a day.
More than 8 000 are awaiting the gallows in Pakistani jails, most for decades, according to statistics compiled by the Law Ministry.
The United Nations, European Union, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other global bodies have urged Pakistan to immediately reinstate the moratorium.
A spokesperson for the HRCP called the development extremely cruel and painful.
"The worst part is that those being hanged are poor," said Zaman Khan, "the ones who cannot afford to buy justice in a system riddled with corruption."