Delhi HC seeks police reply on Tahir Hussain's appeal in IB staffer murder case
Delhi High Court admitted Tahir Hussain's appeal against conviction and life term for murdering IB officer Ankit Sharma in 2020 riots; seeks police response.
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought the Delhi Police's response to an appeal filed by former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain, who is challenging his conviction and life sentence in the murder of Intelligence Bureau staffer Ankit Sharma during the February 2020 riots.
A bench of Justices Prathiba M. Singh and Vikas Mahajan admitted the appeal and scheduled it for hearing on December 2, along with other connected appeals filed by co-convicts. The court also directed jail authorities to submit the convict's nominal roll and called for the trial court records.
Hussain's appeal argues that the investigation was biased from the start and aimed at implicating him to pacify public anger. He alleged that the FIR was backdated, no substantive probe was carried out until his arrest in another case on March 6, 2020, and that witnesses were planted while statements of genuine eyewitnesses were manipulated.
The Delhi Police counsel said the State would argue all appeals together. The bench noted that while each convict's role would be assessed separately, hearing the appeals jointly would save judicial time.
According to the prosecution, Ankit Sharma, posted with the IB, went missing on February 25, 2020. His body was recovered from a drain in Khajuri Khas with 51 injuries. The trial court on July 13 convicted Hussain and four others — Nazim, Qasim, Javed, and Anas — for murder, holding them part of an armed unlawful assembly that killed Sharma during communal violence. On July 31, they were sentenced to life imprisonment, with the court ruling the case did not warrant the death penalty.
Hussain was convicted under several IPC sections, including murder, rioting, and promoting enmity. The prosecution had sought death for all five, but the trial court declined, noting the state failed to prove they posed a continuing threat to society.
The riots in northeast Delhi in February 2020, triggered by clashes over the citizenship law, left at least 53 people dead and many injured.