Hangman Lacks Work, and Pakistan Looks to Provide

LONDON — The prison hangman loitered in a Lahore graveyard, depressed and nursing a glass of vodka, wondering when he would get back to work.

Once he had plenty to keep him busy. Before the Pakistani government introduced a moratorium on capital punishment in 2008, the hangman, Sabir Masih, dispatched about 200 prisoners at the gallows over a period of three years.

But since then, he has been idle. Every day, he clocks into work at the Kot Lakhpat prison on the edge of Lahore. Every month, he collects his $120 salary. But mostly, he spends his time chatting with fellow Christians at the graveyard, where they furtively smoke and drink out of view of conservative Muslims, for whom alcohol is forbidden.

The moratorium, which was introduced by President Asif Ali Zardari, had drained his sense of purpose, he said.

“My job requires courage,” said Mr. Masih, speaking among the gravestones, in a maudlin tone. “It is not for the weak-hearted, because one moment a person is alive, the next he is gone.”

But good news for Mr. Masih — and bad news for the estimated 8,000 prisoners awaiting execution in Pakistan — may be near.

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Source: The New York Times, Sept. 8, 2013