SC Stays Ansari’s Death Sentence in American Centre Attack Case
The Supreme Court has stayed death penalty given to underworld don Aftab Ahmed Ansari for his involvement in American Centre attack in Kolkata in 2002, said media reports.
A vacation bench of Justices GS Singhvi and CK Prasad instructed the West Bengal government to file within four months its reply on a plea moved by Ansari against his conviction and the death sentence in the case, reports said.
On January 22, 2002, two motorcycle-born men had indiscriminately fired an AK-47 assault rifle at policemen outside American Center on Jawaharlal Nehru Road, killing six of them and injuring 14 others.
In February this year, a division bench of the Calcutta High Court maintained death penalty of Ansari and co-accused Jamiluddin Nasir though it commuted the capital punishment awarded to three others to seven year-term at the end of a 77-day hearing.
The apex court stayed the death sentence awarded to Nasir earlier this month.
The sessions court in April 2005 had sentenced Ansari, Nasir and three others to death while acquitting two others.
They were charged with sections 121 (waging war against the state), 121-A (conspiracy), 302 and 9 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the IPC and 27(3) of the Arms Act.
(Based on internet reports)
