GILGIT: Three convicted prisoners involved in the Nanga Parbat massacre of foreign tourists were shifted to Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi from Gilgit District Jail on Friday.

Official sources said that the prisoners, including Irfanullah, Habibur Rahman and Karimullah, were airlifted to Rawalpindi via a PIA flight on Friday morning amid tight security.

Ten foreign mountaineers and a local guide were shot dead by militants, reportedly dressed in uniform of the Gilgit Scouts, in an attack on a high-altitude base camp on Nanga Parbat, near Gilgit, on June 22, 2013.

The climbers were from China, Nepal, Ukraine, Slovakia and Lithuania. Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest mountain in the world, is visited by trekkers and mountaineers from June to August because of moderate weather conditions.

The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan had claimed responsibility of the attack. A total of 11 suspects were involved in the Nanga Parbat incident. GB police had arrested five of them. One of the arrested prisoners escaped in the Gilgit jailbreak incident, last year, while another was killed in a police encounter following the jailbreak.

Later, the Nanga Parbat case was shifted to the military court under the National Action Plan. The military court sentenced the three prisoners for their involvement in Nanga Parbat massacre, giving death sentence to one and life imprisonment and 10 years imprisonment to the two, respectively.

The sources said that six suspects involved in the Nanga Parbat massacre were still at large, adding the convicted prisoners were shifted to Adiala jail for implementation of the military court sentences as there were no arrangements for hanging a convicted person in Gilgit jail, where the administration also feared security for high profile prisoners.

Two high-profile prisoners convicted of assassinating Diamer SSP Mohammad Hilal and Col Ghulam Mustafa and Capt Ashfaq Aziz of the army had escaped from the district jail in the jailbreak incident.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2016