Pakistan to execute mentally ill convict; court rules schizophrenia 'not a mental disorder'

World Health Organization estimates that globally over 21 million people suffer from Schizophrenia.

Pakistan Supreme Court — The supreme court's October 21 ruling that said schizophrenia did not fall within Pakistan's legal definition of mental disorders was delivered by a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali. It had surprisingly cited the judgment of India's Supreme Court in the 1976 case of Amrit Bhushan Gupta vs the Union of India[Representational image]Reuters

Schizophrenia, a brain disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally, is not considered to be a mental illness by Pakistan's Supreme Court. This has been done in order to proceed with the execution of a 50-year-old man.

Imdad Ali was convicted of murder and sentenced to death way back in 2001. However, in 2012, Ali was certified as a paranoid schizophrenic by doctors.

Ali's lawyer tried defending him by saying that he has no knowledge or understanding of the offense he committed, nor does he have any idea about the punishment has been sentenced to.

But in a ruling issued on October 21, the Supreme Court said that schizophrenia is "a recoverable disease, which, in all the cases, does not fall within the definition of 'mental disorder'," as reported by gandhara.rferl.org.

Now, the 50-year-old is likely to be executed by October 26.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, the death penalty was reintroduced by Pakistan in 2014 which was followed by the execution of more than 400 out of approximately 8,000 death row culprits.

Over 21 million people across the world are suffering from schizophrenia. Despite being a treatable disease, it's found that one out of two people don't receive proper care for their condition.