Dhaka, May 13 -- The High Court has reduced the sentences of those convicted in the case over the 2001 bomb attack on the Chhayanaut Bengali New Year event at Dhaka's Ramna Botomul.

The court commuted the death sentences of two convicts to life imprisonment, while nine others were sentenced to 10 years in prison each.

The verdict was delivered on Tuesday by a High Court bench of Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam and Justice Nasreen Akter in one of the country's most widely discussed cases of militant violence.

The ruling came after the court rejected the state's plea to uphold the death sentences handed down by the trial court and accepted the appeals filed by the convicts.

The trial court had originally sentenced eight people to death for ...