Aftab gets life in Khadim case

KOLKATA: Five accused, including crime lord Aftab Ansari, were sentenced to life on Wednesday in the Khadim boss abduction case. The verdict was delivered under high-security camera surveillance by additional district judge of Alipore Court Biswarup Bandyopadhyay at a special set up inside Alipore central jail.
The other four who were sentenced to life are Happy Singh, Aquib Ali, Abdur Rehman Punji and Asabuddin, said public prosecutor Naba Ghosh.Seventeen other accused, including HuJI activist Jamiluddin Nasir, were acquitted for lack of evidence. Jamiluddin, though, has been given the death sentence for the American Center terror attack along with Ansari.
The two cases assumed global importance as part of the ransom from Khadim boss Partha Pratim Roy Burman's family was traced to the funds that went into planning the 9/11 attack in New York and Washington.
The five lifers were found guilty of abduction for ransom, wrongful confinement and criminal conspiracy. Aftab, who masterminded the American Center attack, hatched the plan to kidnap Kolkata-based shoe baron Roy Burman in Dubai.
The case had gone through several twists since hearing began in June 2005. Calcutta High Court had to intervene once the judge in the case, Biswarup Bandyopadhyay, who had been hearing the case since the beginning, was suddenly transferred. Bandyopadhyay had already heard 138 witnesses and was in the process of hearing the last witness when the transfer order came. The High Court revoked the transfer order. Advocates said the case would have been delayed if the High Court had not intervened on time.
Two of the key accused, Asif Reza Khan and Obeda, died during the trial. Three other accused bar singer Swati Pal, Babloo Zafar and Noor Ahmed Mollah turned approvers. The accused were chargesheeted in May 2002 and the trial started in 2005.
Ansari's extradition under US pressure from the UAE in 2002 was the first such case between India and the UAE. But the case suffered a few body blows after some key witnesses, including hostage Partha Pratim Roy Burman, turned hostile. Roy Burman, in fact, refused to identify his voice, recorded in an audio tape while he was in the custody of his abductors.
On July 25, 2001, Roy Burman, the vice-chairman of leather company Khadim, was abducted while he was on his way to his Tiljala warehouse. He received a bullet injury on his arm and was kept hostage in a house at Pakuria in Habra, North 24-Parganas. His abductors demanded Rs 20 crore as ransom, which was later scaled down to Rs 5 crore through negotiation.
Rs 3.75 crore was paid to Ansari in Dubai through the hawala racket. Several hawala operators of Hyderabad were arrested in connection with the case. Roy Burman returned to his Salt Lake home on August 2, 2001.