RAWALPINDI, Jan 22: A special Anti-Terrorism Court here on Thursday handed down death sentence to three men, on four counts, convicted of carrying out a terrorist attack on the Taxila Church on Aug 9, 2002 , killing four nurses and injuring 20 other people.

ATC No.1 Judge Manzoor Ahmad Mirza awarded the capital punishment to Saifur Rehman, Abu Bakar and Ayaz for attacking the church with grenades. The court also imposed a Rs100,000 fine on each of the convicts.

The court also awarded life sentence to three convicts, on eight counts each, for injuring the 20 people and fined them Rs50,000 each. During their raids, police had recovered some illicit weapons from Ayaz, Sabir Hussain and Taufeeq. On this count, the court awarded three years' rigorous imprisonment to Ayaz and fined him Rs5000. For the same crime, the court awarded seven years' RI to Sabir Hussain and fined him Rs100,000; six months' jail in case of of failure to pay the fine.

The court awarded 10 years' RI to Taufeeq, another convict, and ordered confiscation of his property. It acquitted Taufeeq, Sabir and Asif of physically participating in the attack.