Army chief approves death penalty for 10 terrorists

Islamabad: Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Monday approved the death penalty for 10 terrorists.

The army chief confirmed death sentence for 10 “hardcore terrorists” and imprisonment to five others who were tried by special military courts. The convicts also include terrorist who killed the famed Pakistani qawwal (musician) Amjad Sabri in Karachi.

According to an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement issued on Monday, the terrorists “were involved in heinous offences related to terrorism, including killing of innocent civilians and attacking Pearl Continental Hotel Peshawar as well as Law Enforcement Agencies/Armed Forces of Pakistan.”

The 10 militants were involved in the killing of 62 persons, including 5 civilians, 11 police officials and 46 Frontier Constabulary/Armed Forces Personnel, according to the ISPR statement which added that arms and explosives were also recovered from their possession.

The terrorists — identified as Mohammad Ishaq, Mohammad Rafique, Mohammad Arish, Habibur Rehman, Mohammad Fayaz, Esmail Shah, Mohammad Fazal, Hazrat Ali, Mohammad Asim and Habibullah — were all members of proscribed organisation. Pakistan had legalised military court trials of terror suspects for a period of two years in January 2015 after terrorists killed 144 people, mostly children, at an Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar.

Since their reinstatement in 2015, military courts in Pakistan have sentenced 186 convicts to death and issued verdicts for more than 300 terrorism-related cases, according to Ministry of Defence.

In 2017, President Mamnoon Hussain signed the 28th Amendment Bill 2017 extending the tenure of military courts for another two years. The two Acts – Pakistan Army Act 2017 and the 28th Constitutional Amendment Bill – extended the duration of the military courts for another two years, starting from January 7, 2017.