A paralytic Pakistani convict has had his scheduled execution put off because he was unable to walk to the gallows as required by jail laws.

Abdul Basit, convicted in 2009 for murder, was to be hanged in the eastern Pakistan city of Faisalabad on Tuesday.

“When the judicial magistrate came to the hanging, these guys tried to make him (Basit) stand at the gallows... it wasn’t possible, so the magistrate postponed the hanging,” said Wassam Waheed, a spokesman for Justice Project Pakistan, the human rights law firm that handles his case.

The 43-year-old became paralyzed from waist down after contracting meningitis in prison in 2010 and failing to receive proper medical treatment.

Pakistan lifted a moratorium on executions after a group of pro-Taliban militants stormed an army-run school and killed about 150 people, including 132 students, in the northwestern city of Peshawar last December.

UK-based rights group Amnesty International estimates that Pakistan has more than 8,000 prisoners on death row. Since repealing the ban, the country has executed more than 200 people.