Tahir Hussain, four co-convicts sentenced to life for IB officer’s murder

A Delhi court sentenced former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain and four others to life imprisonment for the 2020 Delhi riots murder of Intelligence Bureau officer Ankit Sharma. The court declined the death penalty, holding the prosecution failed to prove the convicts were beyond reformation

New Delhi: A Delhi court on Friday sentenced former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain and four others to life imprisonment for the murder of IB officer Ankit Sharma during the 2020 Delhi riots. Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Singh pronounced the sentence to all five accused after hearing arguments on the quantum and said that the prosecution was not able to prove that the convicts are not beyond reformation.

The judgement was pronounced in the physical presence of Hussain and others amid tight security. The courtroom was packed with lawyers and senior Delhi Police officials including Crime Branch’s Joint Commissioner and DCP.

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Earlier, Delhi Police had sought death penalty for all five accused, saying they fell to the “level of being animals” while relentlessly assaulting Sharma. Special public prosecutor Madhukar Pandey had submitted that Sharma was brutally killed and was not shown any mercy by the convicts, so they should not be given any leniency.

Those who are asking for mercy today should have shown mercy themselves. No mercy was shown from anyone’s side. No one even took Ankit to the hospital. They are asking for mercy after committing such a brutal murder, Pandey had said.

On July 13, the court convicted Hussain and four others for the murder of Sharma, who was attacked by a mob during the riots. His body was later found in a drain.

In its verdict, the court held that Hussain was a member of a heavily armed mob that assembled with animus against Hindus to commit rioting, arson and loot, and murdered Sharma in a savage and relentless assault.

The court said the prosecution had proved that the members of the unlawful assembly knew that, in pursuing their common object, death could (be the) result and someone could be killed.

Hussain was convicted under IPC sections 302 (murder), 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to 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), read with Section 149 (unlawful assembly).