The apex court on Wednesday commuted the death sentence of two convicts in the 2002 American Center attack case in Kolkata, but ordered that the mastermind will remain behind bars till death while his accomplice will spend 30 years in jail without remission.
The court described the terror attack as “devilish, diabolic, horrendous and vicious,” which impinged on the sovereign authority of the country, a Bench of justices AK Patnaik and FM Ibrahim Khalifulla upheld the conviction of Aftab Ahmad Ansari and Jamiluddin Nasir.The order said that death is not warranted in the case “though it calls for other deterrent punishment.”
Four police constables and a private security guard were killed and 20 other people injured when, on January 22, 2002, terrorists attacked an American cultural centre in Kolkata. The centre houses a library, the American embassy’s public affairs office, a press section and a cultural wing.
“Appellant Aftab deserves to be imprisoned for the entirety of his life while in the case of appellant Nasir he can be imposed with a life imprisonment for a minimum period of 30 years,” Justice Khalifulla, who wrote the judgment, said adding “the role of Nasir was always a shade lesser than what can be attributed to Aftab”.
Referring to verdicts of the apex court in Red Fort, Parliament and Mumbai terror attack cases, the bench said facts of those cases were different from the present case and cannot be used for the purpose of deciding the sentence to be imposed on the accused.“Therefore, even while holding that the charges found proved against the appellant are of grave in nature, when it comes to the question of sentence we wish to hold that the imposition of death penalty is not warranted in the facts and circumstances of the case though it calls for other deterrent punishment,” it said.
The court passed the order on appeals filed by Ansari and Nasir challenging the Calcutta high court order which had confirmed death sentence awarded to them by trial court. The apex court had in 2010 stayed the death sentence awarded to them.A division Bench of the Calcutta high court had in February 2010 upheld the death sentence of Ansari along with co-accused Jamiluddin Nasir but commuted the capital punishment awarded to three others to seven years imprisonment.
The session’s court in April 2005 had sentenced Ansari, Nasir and three others to death while acquitting two others.Four days after the attack, two persons - Salim and Zahid - were injured in an encounter with a Delhi Police team in Hazaribagh in Jharkhand and they subsequently died. The police had come to know about the involvement of Ansari in the American Center attack from their dying declarations.
Ansari was arrested from Dubai thereafter and was deported to India on February 9, 2002 to face trial. He was part of terror outfit Asif Reza Commando Force (ARCF) that reportedly had links with Harkat-ul-Jehadi-e-Islam.