ISLAMABAD: Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif approved on Thursday death sentences awarded by military courts to five religious militants for carrying out last year’s Safoora carnage.

Two of the terrorists sentenced to death — Saad Aziz and Asadur Rehman — were also involved in the murder of civil society activist Sabeen Mahmud.

“Chief of Army Staff confirmed death sentences awarded to five hardcore terrorists, who perpetrated Safoora Chowrangi bus attack and were also involved in improvised explosive device blast near Saleh Masjid, Karachi, killing of a social worker Miss Sabeen Mahmud and attacks on law enforcement agencies. These convicts were tried by military courts,” the ISPR said in an announcement.

The confirmation of death sentences came a day before the first anniversary of the tragic Safoora incident in which 45 people belonging to the Shia Ismaili community were killed. Thirteen others were injured in the attack on the community’s bus believed to have been carried out by six assailants armed with pistols, who later managed to flee.

The incident elicited international outrage and condemnation.

The case was referred to military courts by the Sindh government in December last year. The group was caught by Karachi police’s Counter-Terrorism Department on May 19-20 last year.

Tahir Hussain Minhas, son of Khadim Hussain Minhas, was tried on nine charges; Saad Aziz, son of Abdul Aziz Sheikh, on 10 charges; Asadur Rehman, son of Atiqueur Rehman, on four charges; and Hafiz Nasir, son of Afzal Ahmed, and Muhammad Azhar Ishrat, son of Ishrat Rasheed Ahmed, were tried on five charges each.

“The convicts admitted their offences before the trial court and were awarded death sentences,” a military spokesman said.

Tahir Hussain Minhas alias Sain is an Al Qaeda leader who directed operations in Karachi and ran a ring for carrying out terrorism and other criminal activities. He formerly belonged to the anti-Shia terrorist group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Kashmiri militant groups Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Saad Aziz, besides his involvement in the Safoora attack, confessed to killing Sabeen Mahmud for her liberal, anti-Taliban and anti-Lal Masjid views.

In Sabeen’s assassination, he was helped by four accomplices — only one of whom, Asad, is among those sentenced to death. The fate of other three — Haider Abbas, Mahmood and Tayyab — is unknown.

Saad Aziz, a business graduate, had also attacked American academic Debra Lobo, who taught at a college in Karachi, and carried out bank heists and attacks on law enforcement personnel in the city.

He had joined Al Qaeda in 2010 and, according to some accounts, left the terrorist group in 2015 and swore allegiance to the militant Islamic State (IS) group. IS pamphlets were found at the site of the Safoora bus attack. Saad describes himself as a Salafi and has also remained affiliated with Tableeghi Jamaat and Islami Jamiat Tulaba, the student wing of Jamaat-i-Islami. He got militant training in Waziristan.

Asadur Rehman is also an Al Qaeda militant, who initially joined Dr Israr Ahmed’s Tanzeem-i-Islami. He drove the motorcycle as Saad shot Sabeen.

Hafiz Nasir and Azhar Ishrat were said to be part of the group that attacked the bus of Ismailis.

Military courts set up in 2015, in the aftermath of the APS tragedy, through legislation for two years, have so far sentenced 75 convicts to death and four others to life imprisonment. Only eight of the convicted terrorists have been executed. They were sentenced to death for their involvement in the attack on the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar.

Most of the convictions have been announced this year.

Published in Dawn, May 13th, 2016