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Five hundred convicted terrorists are set to be executed in Pakistan within the next few weeks, according to an announcement which was made by the country’s Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Sputnik reported.

“We will only execute militants whose appeals for mercy have been rejected by the president [Mamnoon Hussain],” Newsweek Pakistan quoted him as saying at a press conference in Islamabad on Sunday.

The announcement comes in the wake of a recent order by Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to lift the death penalty moratorium in the country, following last week’s attack on a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar, which left 149 people dead including 133 children.

The interior minister, however, has claimed the decision to end the death penalty moratorium hadn't been motivated by that Taliban attack.

“The government took the decision before the Peshawar school attack in light of the Army chief’s suggestion to resume capital punishment as a deterrent to [potential] terrorists,” he said.

Since the lift of the moratorium, police, troops and paramilitary rangers have been deployed across the country, and airports and prisons have been put on red alert as the executions take place and troops have intensified operations against Taliban militants in northwestern tribal areas.