2020 Delhi riots: Police seek death penalty for Tahir Hussain, 4 others for IB staffer’s murder

The Delhi Police on Monday urged a city court to sentence former Aam Aadmi Party councillor Tahir Hussain and four other convicts to death for the murder of Intelligence Bureau staffer Ankit Sharma during the 2020 riots in the national capital, Bar and Bench reported.

Sharma’s murder was cold-blooded and brutal, the legal news outlet quoted the Delhi Police counsel as saying. “Those who want mercy should also show mercy,” the counsel said. “They have no evidence to show that any mercy was shown by any person to carry this person [Sharma] to a hospital.”

The lawyer representing Hussain and the other convicts – Javed, Anas, Nazim and Kasim – opposed the plea, stating that the death penalty can be awarded only in the rarest of rare cases.

The verdict in the matter has been reserved and the order will be passed on Friday, Bar and Bench quoted the court as saying.

Sharma was killed by a mob during the violence, and his body had been dumped in a drain.

On July 13, a sessions court had convicted Hussain for murder, rioting, disobedience to an order promulgated by a public servant, promoting enmity between groups, rioting armed with a deadly weapon, unlawful assembly, and kidnapping or abducting with intent to secretly and wrongfully confine a person.

However, it cleared him...

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