KARACHI: The Supreme Court has set aside the death sentence handed down to two brothers and acquitted them in the 2005 PIDC bomb blast case.

A three-judge bench of the apex court comprising Justice Athar Minallah, Justice Irfan Saadat Khan and Justice Malik Shahzad Ahmad Khan exonerated the appellants by extending them benefit of the doubt.

The bench also dismissed a petition filed by the state against acquittal of a co-accused in the case.

Allowing the petition of Mangla Khan and his brother Abdul Aziz Khan for the reasons to be recorded later, the bench set aside the judgements of the trial court as well as the Sindh High Court.

In May 2007, an anti-terrorism court had sentenced the two brothers to death for masterminding and carrying out a bomb blast outside the PIDC building in November 2005 that had left four people dead and 21 others wounded.

Bench sets aside conviction of Mangla Khan and Abdul Aziz in 20-year-old attack that claimed lives of four people

The ATC had also handed down multiple terms, including life term, to both convicts. The third accused, Hameed Bugti, was arrested a month after the conviction of the two brothers and after holding his trial separately, the trial court had sentenced him to death in June 2014 in the same case.

In April 2020, while deciding the appeals of the convicts the SHC had upheld the capital punishment of the two brothers but acquitted the co-accused Bugti on the ground that the case against him was on a different footing since there was no other corroborative evidence to support the statement of an eyewitness against him.

Thereafter, both the convicts, through their counsel, Sheikh Jawaid Mir had filed a petition in the apex court against the judgement of the SHC.

The state had also filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the acquittal of Bugti.

After hearing the arguments from both sides and examining the record and proceedings of the case, the bench in its short order said, “For reasons to be recorded later, this petition is converted into an appeal and it is allowed. The appellants Abdul Aziz Khan and Mangla Khan, sons of Gella Khan, are acquitted from the charges framed against them by extending the benefit of doubt in their favour.”

“Consequently, the judgements of the trial court and that of the High Court dated 31.05.2007 and 09.04.2020 respectively are hereby set aside. In case the appellants are not required to be incarcerated in any other case then they shall be released forthwith” it added.

About the petition filed against the acquittal of the co-accused in the case, the bench in its order also noted that since no question of law has arisen for bench’s consideration, leave to appeal was refused and consequently this petition stood dismissed.

According to the prosecution, on Nov 15, 2005 a powerful blast ripped through the ground floor of the PIDC House, a multi-storied building also housing the offices of the Pakistan Petroleum Limited, that left four private security guards dead and 21 others wounded.

Initially, the two brothers were arrested in Gulshan-i-Iqbal on a tip-off and they had confessed to having carried out the bomb blast on the instruction of the late Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti to ‘punish’ the PPL for “not recruiting the local youth of Balochistan”, it maintained.

The prosecution also claimed that the grandson of the late Akbar Bugti, Brahamdagh, and a nephew of the slain Baloch leader Abdul Majeed Bugti and others were declared proclaimed offenders in the case.

It further contended that the confessional statements of both brothers were made voluntarily before a judicial magistrate and eyewitnesses had identified the appellants for parking a car at the crime site in which the bomb was planted.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2025