With over 5,000 death row convicts in Punjab awaiting their fate, there are only two hangmen in the province. However despite the demand, all that these hangmen make is Rs 500 per execution, BBC Urdu reported on Friday.
With most of these hangings were carried out in Punjab (around 170), there are only two hangmen for carrying out executions in the 36 jails across the province.
Sabir Masih, one of two government employees executing death penalties in Punjab, told BBC Urdu that he often travels hundreds of miles to perform his duties for which he is paid a mere Rs 500.
Lamenting the fact that some jail officials neither pay him his fee nor give him any travelling allowance, Sabir says sometimes he has to pay travel and other expenses from his own pocket.
Claiming that he has executed more than 200 men in his career, Sabir said since December last year, he has hanged around 60 convicts in half a dozen jails across Punjab.
Among those he has hanged was Dr Usman, who was found guilty of attacking the convoy of former president General Pervez Musharraf and the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi.
Sabir, who makes Rs 15,000 per month, reveals even his forefathers were associated with the profession and his grandfather worked as a hangman during the British era and would get Rs 20 for it.
His grandfather’s brother, Tara Masih, is the perhaps the most well-known from his family. Tara is the one who hanged Pakistan’s first elected prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979.
Tara had to be flown from Bahawalpur to Lahore for the hanging after the executioner in Lahore, Sadiq Masih, Tara’s nephew and Sabir’s father, excused himself from hanging the popular leader.
