Hanging delayed

Basit’s execution is postponed after a magistrate says he cannot be hanged in compliance with the jail manual, which says that a prisoner must stand on the gallows. Rights groups have said that hanging a handicapped person would constitute cruel and degrading treatment. he remains on death row. Justice Project Pakistan:

[The] jail manual only provides for hanging as a method of execution, and lays down methods to calculate the right length of rope to ensure that hanging does not lead to protracted strangulation. The rules presume that the convict [can] walk up to the gallows, which is not possible in Basit’s case.