A Delhi court on Friday sentenced former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Tahir Hussain and four others to life imprisonment for the murder of Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer Ankit Sharma during the 2020 Delhi riots.
Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Singh of the Karkardooma Court rejected the prosecution’s plea for the death penalty, holding that although the crime was exceptionally brutal, it did not fall within the category warranting capital punishment.
Highlighting the extreme brutality of the offence, the court observed that the perpetrators treated the victim’s body with profound indignity before discarding it in a drain. Characterizing the act as nauseating and sickening, the bench noted that such savagery places the matter squarely in the “rarest of rare” category.
However, Judge Singh held that the prosecution failed to establish that the convicts were beyond the possibility of reform. The Court noted that none of the five, Tahir Hussain, Nazir, Asim, Javed and Anas, had a proven history of violent crime and that their conduct in custody, barring minor infractions, had been satisfactory.
The court opted for life imprisonment after noting that none of the convicts had a history of violent crime, suggesting they were capable of discipline and rehabilitation.
The Delhi Police had sought the death penalty, arguing that Sharma’s murder was cold-blooded and exceptionally gruesome. The prosecution submitted that the convicts had shown no mercy to the victim and therefore deserved none.
The defence opposed the plea, contending that the death penalty could be awarded only in the “rarest of rare” cases. It argued that there was no evidence of a criminal conspiracy and pointed out that several members of the mob allegedly involved in the attack had been acquitted.
Hussain was convicted under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code, including Sections 188, 153A, 147, 148, 149, 365 and 302. The Court convicted Nazir, Asim, Javed and Anas under the same provisions.
The FIR was registered on February 26, 2020, on the complaint of Ankit Sharma’s father, Ravinder Kumar. He alleged that communal clashes between anti-CAA and pro-CAA groups had engulfed the Chand Bagh area for several days, involving stone-pelting, arson and firing.
According to the complaint, Tahir Hussain, then a municipal councillor with an office near the site, had assembled armed men who allegedly hurled stones and petrol bombs and fired from the rooftop of his office.
Ravinder Kumar further stated that Sharma had gone out on February 25, 2020, to buy household items but never returned. After filing a missing person’s complaint, he was informed by locals that his son had been killed and his body thrown into the Khajuri Khas drain. Sharma’s body was later recovered from the drain near Chand Bagh Pulia.
In his complaint, Ravinder Kumar alleged that Tahir Hussain and his associates murdered his son and disposed of the body by throwing it into the drain.
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