Islamic Council Against Grisly Sentence

A court sentence that calls for a serial killer to be killed the same way his victims died -- strangled publicly, his body cut into 100 pieces and dissolved in a vat of acid -- violates the tenets of Islam, Pakistan's top religious body ruled Monday.

The sentence violated Islamic teachings that prohibit the desecration of a body, said the state-run Council of Islamic Ideology, which oversees Pakistani laws to ensure they don't run contrary to Islamic tenets.

Earlier this month, a judge found Javed Iqbal guilty of killing 100 children and sentenced him to die as his victims died. Pakistani Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider criticized the sentence and said the army-led government would challenge it.

The serial killing generated public anger and outrage throughout Pakistan.

Public punishments are not common in Pakistan, where death sentences are usually hangings carried out inside jails.

Iqbal initially confessed to the killings in a letter to police last year. He said he strangled the children, dismembered their bodies and placed them in a vat of acid. He later recanted his confession.

In his letter, Iqbal directed officials to his home, where they found a blue vat in which the remains of two bodies were found. Police found pictures of 100 children whom Iqbal in his letter confessed to having killed. They also found clothes belonging to the young victims.

Parents of missing children were contacted to sort through clothes and pictures to try to identify their missing children. Most were identified, but police did not recover any more bodies.

On Dec. 30, Iqbal walked into the Lahore office of a leading newspaper and turned himself in. He refused to go directly to the police, saying he feared for his life.

Three accomplices, including a 13-year-old boy, also were found guilty. The boy and one accomplice were given prison terms, while the third accomplice was sentenced to death.

Iqbal and the accomplices lived together in the house where the remains were found. Two of the accomplices were arrested at a bank when they tried to cash a check made out to Iqbal.

In his letter to police, Iqbal said he killed the children in retaliation for police abuse. He said he had been wrongly picked up and badly beaten while in police custody.