2020 Delhi riots: Ex-AAP councillor Tahir Hussain gets life imprisonment over IB officer Ankit Sharma's murder

A Delhi court on Friday handed life imprisonment to former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain and four others in connection with the murder of Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer Ankit Sharma during the 2020 Delhi riots.

The ruling comes after the court convicted the five men on July 13 for the murder of Sharma.

The victim was murdered during the riots in northeast Delhi's Dayal Pur area. His body was later found in a drain.

Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Singh noted that Sharma was killed by "a murderous mob baying for blood."

"The manner in which the crime was committed, it was of utmost brutality, done solely on the ground of religion," the court said.

Earlier, Delhi Police had sought death penalty for all five accused, saying they fell to the "level of being animals".

Special public prosecutor Madhukar Pandey had submitted that Sharma was not shown any mercy by the convicts, so they should not be given any leniency.

"Those who are asking for mercy today should have shown mercy themselves. No mercy was shown from anyone's side. No one even took Ankit to the hospital. They are asking for mercy after committing such a brutal murder," Pandey had said earlier.

However, the court on Friday observed that the prosecution failed to establish that the convicts were beyond reform or that they would continue to be a threat to society.

Hussain was convicted under IPC sections 302 (murder), 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine a person), 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting armed with a deadly weapon), 153A (promoting enmity) and 188 (disobedience to an order duly promulgated by a public servant), read with Section 149 (unlawful assembly).