GPO chowk blast: Appeal filed against ‘mastermind’

The government says that the trial court had ignored the evidence and overlooked several laws in its acquittal order.

LAHORE: The Punjab government has filed an appeal in the Lahore High Court challenging the acquittal of Shahzad Ahmed, the alleged mastermind of the GPO Chowk suicide blast in 2008, by an anti-terrorism court.  The government, in its appeal, stated that it had produced concrete evidence that Ahmed, 34, was the mastermind of the attack on police officials stationed at GPO Chowk on January 10, 2008, shortly before a lawyers’ rally for the restoration of the judiciary was to pass by. The blast left 22 people dead. The government said that the trial court had ignored the evidence and overlooked several laws in its acquittal order. It asked that the anti-terrorism court’s verdict of November 21 be set aside. Ahmad, an alleged member of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, was arrested on April 26, 2008 from Lahore. He is currently serving a life term in prison for possession of explosives, a conviction he has appealed in the Lahore High Court.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 30^th, 2012.