LAHORE - A special anti-terrorism court on Saturday awarded death sentence to Muavia of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan on seven accounts and life-imprisonment to Abdullah on nine counts for killing 94 people and leaving over 100 others injured by attacking two worship places of Jamaat-e-Ahmadia in Lahore.
The judge also fined Rs 3.3 million to each. During the course of hearing, the counsel for the convicts told the judge that police investigation could not prove them guilty. All the allegations levelled against both of them were baseless, said the counsel.
However, a prosecutor told the judge that Muavia was found injured on the spot and taken into custody from there. He said Abdullah and Muafia both belonged to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). He added the police had provided the court with sufficient evidences about their involvement, their links with TTP and the attacks on Ahmadis’ worship places.
After hearing both the sides, the ATC awarded death sentence on seven counts to Muavia while Abdullah was awarded life imprisonment on nine-counts.
The attack was carried out in Model Town and Garhi Shahu localities of Lahore, simultaneously, in 2010.
AKRAM LAHORI EXECUTED AT KOT LAKHPAT JAIL: Another condemned prisoner, Ikram-ul-Haq alias Akram Lahori, an activist of the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), was hanged to death at Kot Lakhpat Jail, Lahore, on Saturday morning, officials said.
Akram Lahori was put on death row for his involvement in sectarian killings in 2001. He was awarded death penalty by an anti-terrorism court in 2004.
At least 19 condemned prisoners, including Ikram-ul-Haq, have been hanged across the country since the ban on the capital punishment was lifted on December 17.
Haq’s hanging was delayed on January 8 after the victim’s family pardoned the convict minutes before his execution in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail. But later, the hanging was restored as a court rejected the pardon from the victim’s family. Two days earlier, the jail authorities received black warrants for Akram Lahori who was hanged at 6am on Saturday.
Heavy police contingents and paramilitary troops have been deployed around the prisons across the Punjab province amid security threats.
On Thursday morning, another death-row prisoner was hanged to death in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail.
The federal government decided to lift the moratorium on executions a day after the deadliest assault on Army Public School in Peshawar, which left more than 140 people dead, mostly schoolchildren.
Besides lifting the moratorium on death penalty, the federal government has moved to set up military courts to try terror cases.
ATC ORDERS PRODUCTION OF LANKAN TEAM ATTACK ACCUSED: An anti-terrorism court on Saturday directed the Multan jail superintendent to produce Malik Ishaq, the leader of a banned outfit, in trial proceedings of Sri Lankan cricket team attack.
Gulberg police had registered a case against Ishaq and others for their involvement in the attack. The court directed the jailer to produce the accused on January 21.
On March 3, 2009, a bus carrying the guest team from Sri Lanka was attacked with AK-47 rifles and grenades at Liberty Chowk, near Gaddafi Stadium.