American Center Attack: Death Sentence of Two Convicts Commuted

Kolkata: Two men convicted of killing six policemen at the American Center in Kolkata in 2002 will not hang, the Supreme Court ruled today.

The court said one of the two convicts, Aftab Ahmed Ansari, will spend his life in jail. The other, Mohd. Jamiluddin, has been sentenced to prison for 30 years without remission.

Ansari, an underworld don, and Nasir had moved the Supreme Court against their death sentence.

The two men were found guilty of firing indiscriminately at policemen outside the American Center on Kolkata's Jawaharlal Nehru Road on the morning of January 22, 2002. Six policemen were killed instantly and 14 others were wounded.

A court had in April 2005 sentenced Ansari, Nasir and three others to death while acquitting two others. Five years later in February 2010, the Calcutta High Court confirmed the death sentence of Ansari and Nasir but commuted the capital punishment of the three others to seven years in jail.
          
The police came to know about Ansari's involvement in the attack from the statements of two other suspects injured in an encounter with a Delhi Police team in Jharkhand, who later died.

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Ansari was arrested from Dubai and deported to India on February 9, 2002 to face trial. He was allegedly a member of the terror outfit Asif Reza Commando Force that reportedly had links with the Harkat-ul-Jehadi-e-Islam.
     
Ansari allegedly ran extortion and abduction rings in India and had set up bases in Kolkata, Agra, Mumbai, Malegaon and Surat.

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