ISLAMABAD: Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif on Thursday signed the death warrants of five ‘hardcore terrorists’, said a statement released by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR). The statement said the men were convicted for ‘perpetrating Safoora bus attack and were also involved in improvised explosive device (IED) blast near Saleh Masjid Karachi, killing of social worker Sabeen Mahmud and attacks on law enforcement agencies’. Those whose death sentences were confirmed are: Saad Aziz alias Tin Tin, tried on nine charges; Tahir Hussain Minhas alias Sain, tried on 10 charges; Asad-ur-Rehman alias Malik, tried on four charges; Hafiz Nasir alias Yasir, tried on four charges and Azhar Ishrat alias Majid, tried on five charges. The convicts admitted their offences before the trial court, added the statement from ISPR. Sabeen Mahmud, the director and founder of The Second Floor (T2F) café, was shot dead by gunmen in the upscale Defence Housing Authority neighbourhood of the metropolis on April 25, 2015. Later in May 2015, at least six gunmen had shot dead 45 members of the Ismaili community onboard a community bus in Safoora Goth on the outskirts of Karachi. According to the military’s media wing, these five convicts were active members of al Qaeda, a global terror outfit. “They were involved in attacking a bus of Ismaili community at Safora Chowrangi in Karachi,” the statement added.