The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the execution of Kolkata’s American Center terror attack mastermind Aftab Ahmed Ansari after admitting his appeal challenging the award of death sentence to him by the trial judge and confirmed by the Calcutta high court.
Ansari, described as mastermind of the January 22, 2002 attack on American Centre in which six cops were killed and 14 persons received serious injures, was put to trial after his extraction from Dubai where he had fled.
The stay of the execution by the appellate court is a normal practice in all cases of capital punishment till the appeal of the convict is finally decided. A vacation bench comprising Justices G.S. Singhvi and C.K. Prasad while staying the high court’s execution order issued notice to the West Bengal government and the CBI, seeking their replies within 16 weeks to Ansari’s special leave petition.
According to the prosecution, Ansari was a member of terror outfit Asif Reza Commando Force, which had links with Harkat-ul-Jehadi-e-Islam.
The high court in its judgement of February 5 had confirmed the death sentence to Ansari and co-conspirator Jamiluddin Nasser, but had converted the capital punishment of Musarrat Hussain, Sakir Akhtar and Hasrat Alam into the life imprisonment.
The court, however, had acquitted two co-accused — Rehan Alam and Adil Hssan — while two others, Sadaquat Hassan Imam and Amir Reza Khan, could not be arrested and were declared as proclaimed offenders by the CBI.
Earlier on May 10, the Supreme Court had also stayed the execution of Nasser while admitting his appeal. The CBI has already filed a cross-appeal in the top court for restoring the death sentence to Hussain, Akhtar and Alam.
Trial court in its judgement of May 27, 2005 had found Ansari, Nasser, Hussain, Akhtar and Alam guilty of waging war against the nation, hatching a conspiracy of a terror attack on a foreign mission, mass murder and violation of the provisions of the Arms Act and awarded them death sentence.