ATC awards three terrorists death penalty on 47 counts

LAHORE: An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) judge, Muhammad Qasim, on Friday awarded death sentence on 47 counts each to three terrorists for their involvement in an attack on the Rescue 15 building and the offices of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in Lahore.
The convicts are members of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan group, Al-Toheed Al-Jihad, then led by Dr Umar Kundi, who belonged to Lodhran’s Kehror Pakka Tehsil. The attack claimed the lives of 29 people, 19 police officials and a senior officer of an intelligence agency among them, besides injuring 416 others. Several public and private buildings and vehicles were also damaged in the attack, followed by massive firing, on May 27, 2009.
The court convicted Abid Akram, Sarfraz and Hafiz Shabbir under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997. The court also imposed a fine of Rs25.35 million on each convict, along with additional one-time life imprisonment. The court also directed authorities concerned to confiscate moveable and immoveable properties of all the three convicted terrorists.
The terrorists were further convicted 23 times each under Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). One-time death sentence has been awarded to each convict under Section 3 of the Explosives Substances Act, 1908. They have been further imprisoned for life under Section 4 of the same act.
In 2010, the police had arrested five militants - Sarfraz Ahmad of Chak 116, Faisalabad; Shabbir Ahmad (Chak 29, Thikriwala); Umar Hayat (Chak 423, Tandlianwala); Hafiz Mahmood (Chak 100, Karriwala Dak Khana Khas, Faisalabad); and Abid Akram (a resident of 33/A Qazi Park, Shahdara Town, Lahore) - in connection with the attack.
Dr Kundi was the mastermind of the attack and was also assigned the task of generating funds through kidnap-for-ransom and robberies for the TTP to run its affairs. Sarfraz and Shabbir had opened indiscriminate fire on the policemen deputed at barriers/check-post in front of the police 15 building seconds before the explosive-laden vehicle attack.
All the convicts had also kidnapped and killed people in Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Sialkot. They were also planning more attacks in Lahore when they were arrested.The police seized a huge cache of weapons, hand-grenade pins, mortar shells and four suicide jackets from their possession. They got training from North Waziristan’s Dattakhel tehsil and were assigned re-organisation of the group in Punjab after the death of Dr Kundi. Abid Akram replaced Kundi for the next ‘assignments’ in Punjab.
The vehicle which was used in the attack was snatched from Hangu district at gunpoint and a case was registered with Hangu police station on Feb 2, 2009, against unidentified people, the investigation report said.
Abid Akram and Sarfraz were also involved in kidnapping 14-year-old Arsalan from Samundari Road, Faisalabad, and killed him after four months for non-payment of ransom. Abid was also nominated in killing case of Mian Laeeque, a cloth trader of Faisalabad. They further confessed to kidnapping of a UK-returned man, Mian Bashir, from China Chowk, Sialkot, in August 2009. They later released him after getting Rs2.5 million ransomDr Umar Kundi alias Maaz was killed in February 2010 in Faisalabad. Rai Asif of Prosecution Department represented state in the case.