For the first time in the state, seven men convicted in a single case have been sentenced to hang till death in a milestone judgment in Calcutta on Wednesday. The order took the city?s judicial and governmental circles by surprise.

Since Independence, the number of hanging orders in any case in the state has never exceeded two.

?I have never heard of so many people being condemned to capital punishment in a single case before. Though the lower court?s order is subject to the approval of a higher court, we are witnessing such an order for the first time in Calcutta,? said state home secretary Amit Kiran Deb.

?There are instances of death sentences to three or four persons in a single case in other states in India, but this is definitely a first for West Bengal,? he added.

Bikash Bhattacharya, senior lawyer of Calcutta High Court and former advocate-general of Tripura, called it a ?rare order?, though he disagreed with the judgment.

?The offence committed by Aftab Ansari and his accomplices does not call for capital punishment. They have undoubtedly committed a heinous crime by attacking the American Center and killing five innocent policemen deployed there, but I cannot term the crime a rarest of rare case,? he said.

Bhattacharya, CPM mayoral candidate in the upcoming civic polls, added that Ansari and his accomplices deserved harsh punishment short of the death penalty.

Senior high court lawyer Jaymalya Bagchi said he had, all along, opposed capital punishment.