Authorities in Pakistan’s central Punjab province on Thursday cancelled the hanging of a convicted sectarian militant after the victim’s family pardoned him

Authorities in Pakistan's central Punjab province on Thursday cancelled the hanging of a convicted sectarian militant after the victim's family pardoned him, officials and a family member said.
 
The case is seen as a test of the government's plan to execute convicted terrorists in the aftermath of a school massacre that claimed 150 lives in the country's deadliest terror attack.
  
The stay of execution came as a roadside bomb killed four Pakistani security officials in a region where the military has been battling Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants for more than a decade. The pardoned militant, Ikramul Haq, is a member of banned militant outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi who was sentenced to death by an anti-terror court in 2004 for killing a ‘Shiite Muslim’ three years earlier, AFP said.
  
He was set to be hanged in the eastern city of Lahore early Thursday but his family came to a deal with the victim's relatives on Wednesday night, Haq's lawyer, Ghulam Mustafa Mangan, told AFP.
  
"The hanging was cancelled after we reached a compromise with the complainant's family. They have pardoned my client," Mangan said, without giving further details of the deal.

A senior prison official also confirmed the move, adding: "A magistrate has recorded the statements and the execution has been stayed. Now the court will decide whether the person (should) be acquitted or not."