Islamabad, Jun 16 (IANS): A Pakistani court has suspended the execution of a mentally ill convict, a media report said on Tuesday.

A division bench of theLahore High Court passed the order on Monday on a plea filed by the convict's mother and sought a reply from the Punjab home department, Dawn online reported.

Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), a law firm working for prisoners' rights, represented the petition of convict's mother Iqbal Bano.

Advocate Maryam Haq argued before the bench that the jail authorities in 2008 diagnosed that 41-year-old Khizar Hayat had been suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

He was a police constable and arrested for killing a colleague. Shadbagh police had arrested him in October 2001 and the trial court awarded him the death sentence in 2003.

Haq said national and international laws did not allow the hanging of an insane person.

She asked the court to set aside the death warrant issued by a sessions court and stop the execution.

After hearing the arguments, the bench suspended Hayat's execution. It directed the home department to submit a detailed report about the matter on June 18.