HYDERABAD: Two of the three convicts of the PIA plane hijacking case are on death row in the Hyderabad central prison following rejection of their mercy petitions by the president on Thursday and issuance of black warrants for their execution by the antiterrorism court (ATC).

Shahsawar, Sabir and Shabbir were sentenced to death in the hijacking case lodged against them at SITE police station on May 24, 1998 after they hijacked a plane from Balochistan and planned to divert to Bhuj, India, but pilot Uzair Khan landed it at Hyderabad airport, duping the hijackers into believing that he had landed at Bhuj airfield.

Shahsawar and Sabir are imprisoned in the Hyderabad central jail while Shabbir is in Karachi jail.

The hijackers were arrested and the passengers rescued after an operation conducted jointly by civil administration, police and spy agencies personnel.

The case was registered against them on a complaint lodged by then ASP Dr Usman Anwar and they were charge-sheeted before the ATC, which sentenced them to death on Aug 20, 1998.

They filed appeals in the Sindh High Court and then the Supreme Court but the appeals were rejected. Finally, they filed mercy petitions on Sept 14, 2000, which too were rejected.

There are around 191 cases of death penalties pending disposal at courts. Ahmed Omer Saeed Shaikh, a convict in the US journalist Daniel Pearl’s kidnapping and murder case, is also facing the death penalty and his appeal is pending adjudication in the Sindh High Court.

Other convicts, said jail sources, included those who were involved in the Karachi corps commander attack case and belonged to banned outfits. In the Daniel Pearl case, the Sindh government had also filed an appeal for increase in the sentence of co-convicts — Fahad Nasim, Salman Saqib and Sheikh Adil — after challenging life imprisonment awarded to them by the ATC, Hyderabad.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2014