New Delhi: A Delhi court has sentenced former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Councillor Tahir Hussain to life imprisonment for the murder of Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer Ankit Sharma during the 2020 northeast Delhi riots.
Reacting to the development, the victim’s family has demanded the death penalty.
Reacting to the court judgment, Ankit Sharma’s brother, Ankur Sharma, said the family was disappointed that the court did not award capital punishment.
Speaking to IANS, Ankur Sharma said the family would continue pursuing the case if it reaches the Delhi High Court or the Supreme Court.
“Our demand was that this should have been treated as the ‘rarest of rare’ case. The guilty deserved the harshest punishment. We wanted the death penalty,” he added.
He said that justice has been done by the court, but capital punishment should have been given to Tahir Hussain.
He also appealed to all political parties to ensure that Tahir Hussain and others get death sentence when the case goes to the higher court.
The Karkardooma Court described the killing as “brutal” and noted that Ankit Sharma’s body was dragged into a nearby drain after the murder.
While observing that the offence leaned towards the “rarest of rare” category, the court ruled that the legal threshold for awarding the death penalty had not been met.
It said there was no conclusive evidence of an individual role in the fatal attack and that the possibility of reform could not be ruled out.
According to the prosecution, Ankit Sharma was surrounded by a mob while trying to calm tensions during the riots on February 25, 2020. He was allegedly attacked with knives, sticks, iron rods and stones before his body, bearing 51 stab wounds, was recovered from a drain the next day.
Hussain’s lawyer said that he was only present at the spot and not directly involved in the killing.
Delhi Law Minister Kapil Mishra welcomed the court verdict but expressed hope that a higher court would convert the life sentence into the death penalty.
(IANS)
