Zardari stayed the hanging of Zulfiqar Ali (38) a day after his daughters made an emotional appeal to Bakhtawar and Asifa the President's daughters. Ali, who is in Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, was scheduled to be hanged on Tuesday.

The condemned man's daughters - Noor Fatima (11) and Fiza (9) - had sought an audience with the President on Monday to seek clemency for their father. When they were not allowed to go past the gates of the heavily guarded Presidential Palace, the girls appealed to Zardari's daughters Bakhtawar and Asifa to get the President to spare their father's life.

The Ansar Burney Trust, one of Pakistan's leading rights organisations, thanked Zardari for staying Ali's execution.

Fahad Burney, Vice-Chairman of the Trust, urged the President to commute all death sentences, including those of Indian nationals Sarabjit Singh and Karpal Singh, into life imprisonment in line with an announcement made in this regard by the Prime Minister in June.

Sarabjit, on death row in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail, was originally set to be hanged on April one but his execution was put off indefinitely following the intervention of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. Law Minister Farooq Naek met Sarabjit on Monday to review his case and will submit a report to the President.

Ali was set to become the fifth prisoner to be hanged since Prime Minister Gilani announced in June that the death sentence of thousands of prisoners would be commuted to life imprisonment. There are about 7,000 prisoners on death row in Pakistan. Ali, who was convicted for murder, is doing his MBA from a private university. He earlier obtained a Masters in political science while on death row.

Noor and Fiza, whose father has spent over a decade behind bars, lost their mother two years ago. Their case was also taken up by two lawmakers Surraya Asghar and Tariq Fazal Chaudhry who sent appeals to the President to defer Ali's hanging.

Fahad Burney said Ali was a poor man who was unable to even afford a lawyer during his trial. It was also believed that Ali's case was decided in a biased manner, he said.

He said almost 65 per cent of death row prisoners in Pakistan are ‘innocent and even unaware as to whom they had killed’. The number of prisoners sentenced to death and executed every year in Pakistan is among the highest in the world and there had been a sharp increase in executions in recent years, he added.