GILGIT, July 2: An anti-terrorist court on Monday awarded death sentence to five persons in the murder case of former deputy speaker Northern Areas Legislative Assembly, Syed Asad Zaidi.

The court also handed one accused life imprisonment and five years rigorous imprisonment to two others with Rs50,000 fine. Two persons were set free for want of evidence.

According to the court sources those handed down death sentence were named Mir Baz, Farooq, Faizan, Arshad Aman and Binyamin, while Shakil was given life imprisonment and Amjad Wali and Mansoor were slapped with five years imprisonment.

The Court freed two accused Johar and Manzoor for lack of evidence against them.

The former deputy speaker Syed Asad Zaidi was assassinated on the night of April 20, 2009.

The judge of the Anti-Terrorist Court No-I Raja Shah Baz Khan heard the arguments of the counsel for the accused and delivered the short order and later detailed judgment was issued.

TRANSPORT FARE: Despite decline in prices of petroleum products the transporters are not bringing down the fares, complain residents.

“Though prices of petroleum products have been decreased twice but the transporters are not cutting the fares on routes in and outside the city,” said a local, Shahan Ahmed.

He said the fares of buses had been increased with the increase in prices of petroleum products but now when the POL prices had gone down the transporters were still charging old fares.

The residents said the Transport Regulatory Authority had turned a deaf ear to the calls of the commuters that the fares should be brought down.

“When prices of diesel are increased they take no time to increase the fares but on the other hand when prices of POL are lessened the authorities hesitate to reduce the fares,” regretted Hissam Uddin, a passenger.