Data Darbar attack facilitator gets life imprisonment

LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court on Saturday handed life imprisonment to the facilitator of a suicide attack at Data Darbar shrine that claimed 13 lives, including personnel of the elite police, On May 28, 2019.

Mohsin Khan, a resident of Charsadda, was convicted under the Explosives Substance Act and Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 for possessing explosive material and facilitating the bombing outside Lahore’s Data Darbar. The accused was also sentenced to life imprisonment twice and a separate 14-year-jail term by the ATC court.

ATC Judge Aijaz Buttar convicted the accused for possessing explosive material and all his sentences will come into force one after another. “All the sentences of imprisonment awarded to the convict shall run consecutively (one after the expiry of other),” read the court order.

The court has also ordered the state to confiscate his property. The ATC directed Mohsin Khan to pay an amount of Rs50, 000 each to those injured in the blast.

It is worth mentioning here that an anti-terrorism court in Lahore on 29 November 2019, had already handed a convict death sentence on 22 counts, life imprisonment, and Rs400,000 penalty in a case related to the May 28 suicide blast outside Data Darbar shrine.

ATC-I convicted Mohsin Khan, 23, and handed down the death penalty to him on 11 counts each under Section 302 (b) of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997.

“He be hanged by his neck till he is dead,” said the verdict. However, the sentence of death shall not be executed until its confirmation by the Lahore High Court.

The court also awarded life imprisonment to the convict under section 6 of Explosive Substance Act, seven-year rigorous imprisonment on 24 counts under section 324 of PPC.