Four TTP militants sentenced to death for 2012 prison attack

LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court on Wednesday sentenced four militants to death for killing 10 jail wardens in an attack in Lahore three years ago, officials said.

The four men belonging to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) shot dead the wardens as they slept during a dawn raid on their hostel in July 2012.

“The court has awarded death sentence to four militants for the 2012 attack on jail staff,” special prosecutor Shaikh Saeed said. A court official confirmed the sentences.

The convicts were also fined 1.8 million rupees each, he added.

The four TTP militants, all in their 20s, confessed to carrying out the attack on the residential quarters for prison staff in the Lahore suburb of Ichra, Saeed said.

After killing 10 jail wardens during the dawn raid armed with Kalashnikov rifles and hand grenades, they then stormed another building where around 30 police prison officers were sleeping.

Many were injured as they fled into neighbouring houses in a bid to save themselves from the volley of bullets, Saeed added.

The four men were arrested about a year after the attack when they were caught with Kalashnikov rifles and hand grenades at a bus stand in Lahore.

Pakistan lifted a moratorium on executions in terror cases in December after Taliban gunmen massacred more than 150 people, including over 130 children, at the Army Public School in Peshawar.

Pakistan amended its constitution and set up military courts last month for speedy trial of terrorism cases.

Twenty-four people have been executed since Prime Minister Sharif lifted the six-year moratorium on the death penalty in the wake of the Dec 16 Taliban school massacre.