Tahir Hussain gets life for IB staffer’s killing in 2020 riots

NEW DELHI: Bringing the six-year-long trial in the murder of Intelligence Bureau staffer Ankit Sharma to a close, a Delhi court on Friday sentenced former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain and four others to life imprisonment, holding that Sharma was lynched “solely on account of his religion” during the 2020 northeast Delhi riots.Additional sessions judge Parveen Kumar Singh, however, declined the prosecution’s plea for the death penalty, ruling that while the brutality of the crime was undeniable, the prosecution had failed to prove any specific act committed by each convict during the murder.Pronouncing the sentence, Singh described the murder as one of exceptional brutality committed during the “communal violence that erupted in the wake of the protests against CAA/NRC”.The court held that the prosecution failed to prove allegations that Hussain had “aided, abetted, instigated or led the unlawful assembly”. Singh rejected the other convicts’ pleas that they were sole breadwinners.