The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) of Lahore has awarded death penalties to four convicts on nine counts each for their involvement in the Johar Town blast in June last year that claimed the lives of three people.
The ATC judge awarded death sentence to Peter Paul David, Sajjad Hussain, Eid Gull Khan and Zia Ullah on three counts under each of Sections 302 (b) of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), Section 7-ATA and Section 3-ESA, besides 17 years' rigorous imprisonment and fine of Rs350,000 to them under different sections.
The court also awarded five years imprisonment to convict Ayesha, wife of convict Eid Gull, with a fine of Rs50,000. The sentences were announced in Kotlakhpat Jail owing to security concerns.
The ATC had initiated a formal trial after the submission of the challan against the convicts. It had conducted a trial against five convicts, who had denied the allegations and claimed that they had nothing to do with the incident.
Also read: Evidence may have been lost in Johar Town explosion
During the course of proceedings, the court had recorded the statements of around 56 prosecution witnesses.
The case of the gruesome incident had been registered by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD).
On June 23, three people died and 21 others, including women and children, sustained injuries when an explosives-laden vehicle exploded near the house of Hafiz Saeed, leader of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), in Lahore’s Johar Town neighbourhood.
According to investigators, around 25-30 kilogrammes of explosives could have been used in the blast, as it had left a three feet deep and five feet wide crater at the spot, while shrapnel flew as far as 500 metres.
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