SHC adjourns hearing into Safoora massacre till March 26

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Monday adjourned the hearing of plea seeking suspension of death penalty to accused of Safoora massacre till March 26, ARY News reported.

At least 43 people were killed and 13 others wounded, in May 2015, when armed men opened fire inside a bus carrying members of the Ismaili community near Safoora Chowk in Karachi.

A reply was submitted by the counsel of the federation regarding suspension of the death penalty to the accused awarded by the military court.

“Plea is not maintainable, Supreme Court should be contacted in this regard”, the federal government said in its response.

The court after providing the copies of the reply submitted by the federal government to the applicants, deferred the hearing till March 26.

Earlier a military court had awarded death sentences to five suspects involved in Safoora Goth massacre.

According to ISPR, the five convicts, Tahir Hussain Minhas s/o Khadim Hussain Minhas, Saad Aziz s/o Abdul Aziz Sheikh, Asad ur Rehman s/o Atique ur Rehman, Hafiz Nasir s/o Afzal Ahmed and Muhammad Azhar Ishrat S/O Ishrat Rasheed Ahmed, were tried in a military court. They were active members of Al-Qaeda.

They had confessed to committing the high-profile crimes, before trial court, of shooting dead Sabeen Mahmud, Safoora Chowrangi carnage, bomb blast near Saleh mosque and attacking law enforcement agencies.