ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday hanged seven convicted militants, officials said, raising to 16 the number of executions carried out since it lifted a six-year moratorium on the death penalty in December.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted the moratorium in the aftermath of a brutal assault on a school in Peshawar that left 150 dead, including 134 children.

Officials in four different jails confirmed that the hangings took place early Tuesday morning amid tight security.

One of the militants, Zulfiqar Ali, was convicted of killing two policemen during an attack on the US consulate in Karachi in 2003.

An official in Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed his hanging.

Shuja Khanzada, home minister for Punjab province, added two men, Mushtaq Ahmed and Nawazish Ali, were executed in the central city of Faisalabad for a 2003 assassination attempt on former military ruler Pervez Musharraf.

Three militants Shahid Hanif, Talha Hussain and Khalil Ahmed were hanged at Sukkur Central Jail in Sindh’s province.

They were convicted for assassinating Syed Zaffar Ali Shah in 2003, who was at the time working as a senior official in Pakistan’s defence ministry.

Another senior prison official said one more militant, Behram Khan, was hanged in Karachi for the killing of a lawyer. –