Delhi High Court issued a notice to the Delhi police on Wednesday seeking a response after former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain challenged his life sentence conviction over the murder of Intelligence Bureau officer Ankit Sharma during the 2020 Delhi riots.Hussain’s appeal was admitted by Justice Prathiba M Singh and Vikas Mahajan and has been listed for hearing on December 2 along with other connected appeals.On July 31, the trial court had sentenced Hussain and four other co-convicts Nazim, Qasim, Javed and Anas to life imprisonment for Sharma’s murder, saying the case did not fall within the “rarest of rare” category warranting death penalty.It had also imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh on Tahir Hussain and Rs 25,000 each on the other four.They were additionally sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for the offence of Kidnapping, and another sentence for rioting.Hussain had challenged the trial court’s judgment, alleging that the investigation was aimed at implicating him to satisfy public anger.
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Delhi riots and Sharma’s murder
On February 24, 2020, Communal clashes broke out in northeast Delhi, with eventual deadly violence between citizenship law supporters and protesters leaving 53 dead and several injured.Two days later, Sharma’s father Ravinder Kumar informed Dayalpur police station officials about him missing. Later, his body was recovered from Khajuri Khas nala near a bridge from the Chand Bagh area.According to the prosecution, Sharma’s body had 51 injuries, while seven were enough to cause death. The prosecution called it a deliberate cold-blooded murder, with the use of a heavy cutting weapon.
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