Delhi HC seeks police response on Tahir Hussain’s challenge to Ankit Sharma murder conviction

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought a response from police on a plea filed by former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain challenging his conviction and life sentence in the murder of Intelligence Bureau (IB) staffer Ankit Sharma during the February 2020 northeast Delhi riots.

A bench of Justices Prathiba M Singh and Vikas Mahajan admitted Hussain’s appeal and listed it for hearing on December 2 along with other connected appeals.

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The court also directed the jail authorities to place Hussain’s nominal roll on record and called for the records of the trial court proceedings.

Hussain has challenged the trial court’s judgment convicting and sentencing him, arguing that the investigation was conducted with the aim of implicating him to satisfy public anger.

According to the prosecution, on February 26, 2020, Sharma’s father, Ravinder Kumar, informed officials at Dayalpur police station that his son, who was posted with the IB, had been missing since February 25.

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Kumar later learnt from local residents that a person’s body had been dumped in the Khajuri Khas drain after being murdered. The body was subsequently recovered from the drain, with the prosecution alleging that Sharma had suffered 51 injuries.

On July 31, the trial court sentenced Hussain and four co-convicts — Nazim, Qasim, Javed and Anas — to life imprisonment for Sharma’s murder. The court held that the case did not fall within the "rarest of rare" category warranting the death penalty.

Communal clashes broke out in northeast Delhi on February 24, 2020, after violence between supporters and opponents of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act spiralled, leaving at least 53 people dead and scores injured.