Sakhi Sarwar shrine attack: SC upholds 3,422-year sentence to would-be suicide bomber

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Friday upheld the life imprisonment to a would-be suicide bomber in Sakhi Sarwar shrine bomb attack in Dera Ghazi Khan.

The trial court had awarded 125-time life imprisonment to convict Umar Fidai, which is equal to overall 3,432 years in jail. The bench, headed by Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, ordered running all sentences simultaneously. The chief justice in his remarks called the evidence against the convict as irrefutable.

The defence lawyer said that his client would have been injured in the attack if he had been present at the scene of the bombing attack, asking how an injured person could run up to 475 feet. Not a single eyewitness of the incident was injured in the incident, the lawyer argued.

But he was arrested in an injured state and police had caught him and sent to hospital for treatment, Chief Justice Khosa said. According to the police report, his jacket could not be detonated and people were killed in the explosion of the suicide vest of another bomber with him, the top judge remarked. The trial court had awarded him life sentence for 125 times, the chief justice said.

It becomes overall 3,432 years, the defence counsel replied. The life is one, how the life sentence for 125 times can be implemented, the chief justice remarked. What the nature of the crime is, the concession the law provides will be given, he said. In March 2013, DG Khan Anti-Terrorism Court had announced the Sakhi Sarwar shrine verdict after a 22-month trial.

Two blasts on April 3, 2010, at the shrine in Dera Ghazi Khan had claimed 52 lives and injuries to 172 people. Umar Fidai was one of three suicide bombers present at the time of the attack. His jacket did not detonate and he was arrested in a critical condition. Fidai was reportedly 13 years old at that time. A Lahore High Court bench had upheld the sentence awarded by the trial court.