Pak president signs terror bills into law

Pakistan's President Mamnoon Hussain yesterday signed the 21st Constitutional Amendment Bill of 2015 as well as the Pakistan Army Act 1952 Amendment into law at the Presidency.

Both bills were approved in the Parliament on Tuesday.

The Parliament had adopted the 21st Constitutional Amendment Bill and 'The Pakistan Army amendment Bill 2015' unopposed after 247 Members of National Assembly along with the Senate voted in favour of the laws aimed to set up constitutionally protected military courts to try civilian terror suspects.

Speaking in the Senate yesterday, Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had spoken as to why it was necessary to pass the amendment bill.

"This bill is about military courts trying hardcore terrorists who kill Pakistanis...this is an important day for Pakistan when the nation decided that terrorists will be taken out from the roots," he had said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan yesterday hanged two men sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court, taking the number of executions to nine since the country lifted a moratorium on capital punishment after last month's Taliban school massacre.

The attack on December 16 left 150 people dead, the vast majority of them children.

The convicts, Ghulam Shabbir and Ahmed Ali (alias Sheesh Naag), were reportedly members of banned sectarian militant outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

They were hanged in the southern city of Multan early yesterday.

In another development, Lashkar operations commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the 2008 Mumbai terror attack mastermind, would continue to remain in jail, said Pakistan supreme Court yesterday overturned the high court order granting bail to Lakhvi.