KARACHI/HYDERABAD: Antiter­rorism courts in Karachi and Hyderabad issued on Thursday black warrants for the execution of six convicts in cases of murders and hijacking of a PIA Fokker plane in 1998.

ATC-III judge Saleem Raza Baloch issued the black warrants against Shahid Mehmood, Mohammad Khan and Mehmood Ali and asked the Karachi central prison to carry out the hangings under supervision of judicial magistrates after fulfilling legal formalities under the jail manual.

The court directed the jail authorities to send Shahid Mehmood and Mohammad Khan to the gallows in the early hours of June 2 and Mehmood Ali on May 28 at 4:30am and submit compliance reports after executing the sentences. The convict Mohammad Khan had been shifted to Sargodha district prison in 2009 and he was still said to be confined there.

Shahid Mehmood and Mohammad Khan were sentenced to death in December 1998 by the ATC for murdering wife and eight-year-old daughter of an assistant sub-inspector of traffic police during a house robbery in Napier Police Lines in September that year.

Mehmood Ali was condemned to death and his mother Chand Soof was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing four-year-old Tauqir Ahmed after kidnapping him for ransom in Quaidabad in March 2003.

The jail officials finally approached the trial court to get the convicts’ execution orders after all appeals by them were turned down by higher and superior courts and the president recently rejected their mercy petitions.

The Hyderabad ATC’s judge, Abdul Ghafoor Memon, also issued on Thursday black warrants against Shahsawar, Sabir and Shabbir, convicts in the PIA Fokker hijacking case and fixed May 28 for their hanging.

The court issued the warrants after receiving an application from superintendent of the Hyderabad central prison who sought the execution orders after the convicts’ mercy petition was rejected by the president on May 12.

Warrants for Shabbir were separately issued to Karachi central prison since the convict was lodged there while Shahsawar and Sabir were in Hyderabad central prison.

Hyderabad DIG of prisons, Muzaffar Alam Siddiqui, confirmed the issuance of black warrants and said the two convicts would be hanged in Hyderabad and the third in Karachi.

They were sentenced to death by the ATC on Aug 20, 1998. Later, the SHC and the apex courts rejected their appeals and upheld the verdict on April 19, 2000.

Finally, the president also rejected their mercy petition on Sept 14, 2000, paving the way for their execution.

The convicts were booked by SITE police station in the wake of a joint operation by civil administration, police and officials of law enforcement agencies, which culminated in safe recovery of 32 passengers and crew members and arrest of the hijackers.

They had boarded the Karachi bound plane at Turbat and forced the pilot to take it to India but the pilot landed at Hyderabad after having deceived them into believing he had landed at Indian airfield in Bhuj.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2015

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