PESHAWAR, Feb 20: A two-member bench of the Peshawar High Court has commuted death sentence on two counts awarded to an appellant by an anti-terrorism court to life imprisonment.

The bench, comprising Justice Tariq Pervaiz and Justice Qaim Jan Khan, on Thursday also commuted sentence of ten years imprisonment awarded to the appellant for injuring other persons, to five-year imprisonment. Both the sentences would run concurrently.

The anti-terrorism court, Mardan, had convicted the appellant, Ghafoor Khan, in a famous grenade explosion case of Mardan during which two persons were killed and 12 others including the appellant had received injuries.

He was convicted on Dec 11, 2002, and sentenced to death on two counts, and fined Rs100,000. Two of the co-accused, Enayat and Jehanzeb, were acquitted by the trial court.

The complainant in the case had claimed that the three accused were extorting money from shopkeepers in Kas Korona area, Mardan. He alleged that the appellant was grappling with one of the shopkeeper when a hand grenade exploded killing Abdul Qayyum and Abdul Ghani.

The appellant had challenged the quantum of the punishment.

Advocate Asadullah Chamkani appeared for the appellant and argued that the deaths were accidental and not intentional.

He argued that the appellant had also received injuries during the incident, which proved that he had no intention to kill any person.

Mr Chamkani contended that if the appellant had the intention of killing those persons he would have hurled the grenade from a distance and ran away instead of grappling with them. In given circumstances, he argued, the sentence of death was very harsh.