For most people, engagement with the death penalty is limited to their expressing a vehement opinion about it based on their notion of Shariah, retribution, and as an answer to terrorism, and then moving on with their lives.

But the business of death and execution in Pakistan is messy, gruesome, and plagued by legal flaws, both procedural and substantive. Studies show it is not a deterrent and there is no effective way to ensure that it is carried out in a nondiscriminatory or humane manner.

It is in fact, the opposite of humane.