Pakistan hangs two convicted in Peshawar school massacre

May 24, 2017 05:37 pm | Updated 05:57 pm IST - Islamabad

People light candles to remember the victims of the December 16, 2014 terror attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Thursday. On that fateful day two years ago, seven gunmen affiliated with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan attacked the school, opening fire on school staff and children. Totally, the terrorists killed over 150 people, including 132 schoolchildren. The Pakistan Army launched a rescue operation in which all the militants were killed and 960 people were rescued.

People light candles to remember the victims of the December 16, 2014 terror attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Thursday. On that fateful day two years ago, seven gunmen affiliated with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan attacked the school, opening fire on school staff and children. Totally, the terrorists killed over 150 people, including 132 schoolchildren. The Pakistan Army launched a rescue operation in which all the militants were killed and 960 people were rescued.

Pakistan on Tuesday hanged two Taliban terrorists convicted by military courts of their involvement in the 2014 Peshawar school massacre , which left over 150 people, mostly students, dead.

Pakistan Army said Atta Ullah and Taj Muhammad were active members of the proscribed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and had facilitated the terrorists who attacked the Army-run school in Peshawar in December 2014.

“These terrorists were involved in committing heinous offences relating to terrorism, including attack on Army Public School Peshawar, killing of innocent civilians, attacking Armed Forces of Pakistan and Law Enforcement Agencies,” the Army said.

The terrorists had been tried by military courts and had confessed to their crimes before a magistrate and trial court, it said.

Earlier in December 2015, four terrorists involved in the Peshawar school attack were executed in Kohat jail in the restive Khyber-Pakhtunkwa province.

Military courts, which were restored in March for another two years after their initial two-year term expired in January, work in secrecy due to fear of attacks by militants.

The courts were set up after a constitutional amendment following the Peshawar terror attack.

Human rights group Justice Project Pakistan says over 440 people have been executed since the Peshawar attack.

The military courts have handed down the death penalty to more than 170 militants.

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