Pak court sentences 2 Islamist militants to death for involvement in 2017 Sufi shrine bombing

PTI, May 19, 2020, 5:25 PM IST

Islamabad: An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan has sentenced two Islamist militants to death for their involvement in a 2017 suicide bombing at a Sufi shrine in Sindh province in which 82 people were killed.

According to police, the accused Nadir Ali and Furqan were identified by the eyewitnesses and judicial magistrate Mushtaq Ali Jokhio through CCTV footage.

The duo, who were sentenced to death by the court on Monday was found guilty in the 2017 bombing case in Sehwan Sharif area of Sindh province.

As many as 82 people were killed and over 250 others were injured when a suicide bomber launched a grenade before blowing himself up at the Sufi shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan Sharif on February 16, 2017

The Islamic State militant group had claimed the responsibility for the brutal attack. The blast hit as Sufi Muslims were gathering to perform the dhamaal ritual.

The sect is regarded as heretical by Salafist jihadi groups, including ISIS, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda.

Ali and Furqan had reportedly carried out a recce of the shrine with the suicide bomber a day before the explosion.

“In his statement to the court, Jokhio had identified Ali and said that he had confessed to facilitating the terrorists,” the Express Tribune reported.

“The convict had told the magistrate that he rented a room in Sehwan a day before the blast, while also inspecting the tomb of Lal Shahbaz Qalander from the inside to make the bombing successful,” the report said.

The shrine’s caretakers had also identified the convicts, claiming that they had seen them congratulating each other in the parking lot.