An anti-terrorism court in Sibi convicted five militants on Wednesday on two counts of terrorism, a judge said. The five men, all Pakistani, had been involved in the March 2005 bombing of a Shia shrine, killing 45 people, and in the manufacturing of an explosive device. Anti-terrorism court judge Ismail Baloch sentenced Abdul Halim and Muhammad Aslam to death over their involvement in both the Gandhawa shrine blast and the manufacturing of explosives. The shrine blast had taken place as about 20,000 pilgrims, including Sunnis, had gathered at the shrine of a 19th Shia saint. The judge sentenced Muhamamd Abdullah, Muhammad Arshad and Khalil Ahmad to life imprisonment over their involvement in the shrine attack. Bomb-making charges against them were dropped due to lack of evidence. Prosecution lawyer Deen Mohammad Marri said that the defendants had admitted to belonging to a branch of Sipah-e-Sahaba, an outlawed Sunni Muslim group charged with provoking previous sectarian violence in the country. He said that the men had the right to appeal against their sentencing.
Inspector General Police Balochistan Chaudhry Yaqub had last year said that four of the men had received militant training in Afghanistan and that two of them had fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan against US-led coalition forces. The accused were arrested at a mosque in Usta Muhammad, close to where the shrine blast took place, when a bomb they were making accidentally exploded, injuring one of them.