New Delhi: A Delhi court on Friday sentenced former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Tahir Hussain and four others to life imprisonment in the 2020 Delhi riots case related to the murder of Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer Ankit Sharma. Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Singh of the Karkardooma Courts pronounced the sentence.
The Delhi Police had sought the death penalty for Hussain and the other convicts — Javed, Anas, Nazim and Kasim — arguing that they had “descended to the level of animals” while relentlessly assaulting Sharma. However, the court held that the prosecution had failed to establish that the convicts were beyond the possibility of reformation.
Hussain was convicted under Sections 302 (murder), 365 (kidnapping or abduction with intent to secretly and wrongfully confine a person), 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting armed with a deadly weapon), 153A (promoting enmity) and 188 (disobedience to an order duly promulgated by a public servant) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), read with Section 149 (unlawful assembly).
Special Public Prosecutor Madhukar Pandey argued that Sharma was brutally murdered and that the convicts had shown him no mercy. Therefore, he said, they did not deserve any leniency.
“Those who are asking for mercy today should have shown mercy themselves. No mercy was shown by anyone. No one even took Ankit to the hospital. They are asking for mercy after committing such a brutal murder,” Pandey had submitted.
On July 13, the same court convicted Hussain and the four others for the murder of Sharma, who was attacked by a mob during the 2020 Delhi riots. His body was later recovered from a drain.
In its verdict, the court held that Hussain was a member of a heavily armed mob that had assembled with animosity towards Hindus to engage in rioting, arson and looting, and that Sharma was murdered in a savage and relentless assault.
The court further observed that the prosecution had proved that the members of the unlawful assembly knew that pursuing their common object could result in someone’s death.
The case
According to the FIR registered by Dayalpur Police over the complaint filed by Ankit Sharma's father Ravinder Kumar, the IB official went missing on February 25, 2020. His body was later recovered from a drain. Kumar had accused Tahir Hussain and his gang of killing his son during the riots in Northeast Delhi. The riot, which took place following the protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act, left nearly 53 dead and thousands injured.
According to special public prosecutor Madhukar Pandey, Ankit Sharma was abducted and relentlessly assaulted before he was killed. “A total of 51 wounds were found on his body; 18 of those were inflicted with sharp weapons. The nature of the weapons used shows the intent and diabolical nature of the crime,” he said.
On March 24, 2023, the trial court framed charges against Hussain and ten others, namely - Haseen alias Mullaji alias Salman, Nazim, Kasim, Sameer Khan, Anas, Firoz, Javed, Gulfam, Shoaib Alam alias Bobby, and Muntajim alias Musa. Among the 11 accused, six were acquitted by the court.
