Former Aam Aadmi Party Councillor Tahir Hussain has filed an appeal before the Delhi High Court challenging his conviction and life imprisonment awarded by the trial court in the murder of Intelligence Bureau staffer Ankit Sharma during the 2020 North-East Delhi riots. The conviction and sentence were pronounced by Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Singh of Karkardooma Courts on July 13, 2023, with the formal order of sentencing issued on July 31, 2023. Hussain was convicted alongside four other accused—Javed, Anas, Nazim, and Kasim—all of whom received life imprisonment sentences from the same court.
The trial court, while delivering its judgment, characterised the offence as having been committed during the communal violence that gripped North-East Delhi in February 2020. It emphasized that the manner in which the crime was committed exhibited extreme brutality and was motivated solely by the victim’s religious identity. The court noted that the deceased’s body was dragged like an animal to Chand Bagh pulia before being thrown into a drain, describing the act as barbaric, nauseating, and sickening.
Despite the prosecution’s plea for the death penalty for all five convicts, the trial court declined to impose capital punishment. It held that while there is no legal bar to awarding the death sentence in such cases, the prosecution failed to establish on record any violent disposition or propensity to commit such crime on the part of the accused. The court further observed that none of the convicts had any prior criminal history and that they were capable of being reformed and made to adhere to a rule-based order. The judge added that although the law permits the death penalty, it must be reserved for cases where, beyond the extinction of life, there is proof of something more than mere participation in an unlawful assembly.
The case originated from a missing person report filed by the father of Ankit Sharma, who reported his son missing during the riots. Sharma, an Intelligence Bureau officer, had left his residence around 5 pm on the day of the incident to purchase groceries and household items but did not return. His body was later recovered from a drain near Chand Bagh pulia. The post-mortem examination revealed 51 injuries inflicted by sharp-edged weapons and blunt force across the head, face, chest, back, and waist.
An FIR was subsequently registered based on the father’s complaint, in which he expressed strong suspicion that his son was killed by Tahir Hussain and his associates. The charges were framed in March 2023 against Hussain and ten other individuals under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code, including Sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting with deadly weapon), 153A (promoting enmity between groups), 302 (murder), 365 (kidnapping), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence), 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), and again 153A. Hussain faced additional charges under Sections 505 (statements conducing to public mischief), 109 (abetment), and 114 (abettor present when offence committed). Nazim was further charged under Section 25 of the Arms Act.
Hussain’s appeal before the Delhi High Court seeks to challenge both the conviction and the sentence imposed by the trial court. The matter is currently pending adjudication, and no interim orders or observations have been made by the High Court at this stage. The appeal raises substantive questions regarding the appreciation of evidence, the applicability of charges under IPC and Arms Act, and the correctness of the trial court’s findings on motive and brutality.