New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday commuted death sentence of the 2002 American Centre attack convicts to life imprisonment.
The court has commuted death sentence of main mastermind Aftab Ahmad Ansari and another convict Jamiluddin Nasir in the case. The court in its order said that Ansari will remain behind bars till end of his life. While Nasir will have to be in the jail for at least 30 years without remission.
In May, 2010, the apex court had upheld the death sentence awarded to underworld dons Ansari and Nair given by a lower court in the case.
Two motorcycle-borne men had indiscriminately fired with an AK-47 assault rifle at policemen outside the American Center on Jawaharlal Nehru Road on January 22, 2002 killing six of them and injuring 14 others.
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 sessions court in April 2005 had sentenced Ansari, Nasir and three others to death while acquitting two others.
Just 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 died subsequently. 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.
(With additional information from PTI)
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