The counsel of Hassarat Allam — one of the seven persons convicted in the 2001 American Center attack case — on Friday told the Calcutta High Court that it was wrong on the part of the police to treat the incident as a “terrorist attack on the nation”.

Advocate Jayanta Narayan Chatterjee termed the attack as an exchange of fire between police and criminals that take place oftenly in several parts of the country.

The Division Bench of Justices Asim Banerjee and Kalidas Mukherjee on Friday began hearing the appeal filed by Aftab Ansari and six others — Jamil Uddin Nasir, Mussarat Hussain, Hassarat Allam, Adil Hussain, Sakil Akhtar and Rehan Alam — who had been awarded death sentence by a trial court on April 26, 2005 in the American Center attack case.

Five policemen were killed and several others were injured when gunmen allegedly belonging to a terrorist outfit attack the American Center on January 22, 2001.

Chatterjee told the court that the seven convicts were not present at the spot of the attack and did not take part in the strike.

Opposing the death sentence, Chatterjee argued that the police had brought the charges of criminal conspiracy against the convicts. So the court should set aside the death sentence, pleaded Chatterjee.

The case will come up for hearing next week.