New Delhi, July 31 (IANS) Six years after Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer Ankit Sharma, who was brutally stabbed to death during the 2020 North-East Delhi riots, an Additional Sessions Court on Friday sentenced the then Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Tahir Hussain and four others to life imprisonment.
The Karkardooma court’s verdict highlighted the “monstrosity” of the crime, noting that the “savagery did not end with the murder… and the body was dragged into a drain”.
Delhi Minister Kapil Mishra welcomed the court verdict. At the same time, Hussain told mediapersons that he was hopeful of eventually getting justice – an indication of his lawyers appealing against the trial court’s decision in the High Court.
Mishra, in a social media post, said, “Tahir Hussain’s life imprisonment sentence is the beginning of justice. The cruelty with which Ankit Sharma ji was killed, stabbed with knives even after death, the body thrown into a drain — this is certainly the ‘Rarest of Rare’. It is hoped that in the High Court, this life imprisonment will be converted to the death penalty.”
Following is the timeline of the gruesome crime and key turns during the trial:
Feb 17-23, 2020: Protests break out over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in N-E Delhi areas of Jaffrabad, Chand Bagh, Maujpur, Khajuri Khas and Karawal Nagar
Feb 24: Communal violence breaks out, spreading to other areas, claiming 53 lives. Delhi police deployed.
Feb 25: IB officer Ankit Sharma, 26, steps out of home to pick up house essentials, goes missing. Stones, petrol bombs allegedly hurled from Tahir Hussain’s rooftop in Chand Bagh.
Feb 26: Ankit Sharma’s body with 51 knife wounds recovered from a drain
Feb 27: Delhi Police constitute SIT for murder probe as Ankit Sharma’s father names Tahir Hussain as suspect. Over 700 FIRs lodged.
March 2020: Police arrest Tahir Hussain, seize petrol bombs, acid from his house
June 2: Police file 1,030-page charge sheet against 15 accused, naming Tahir Hussain as mastermind of violence
2021-2022: Witnesses, investigators appear in court during trial
March 23, 2023: Trial court frames murder, rioting charges against Tahir Hussain, 11 others
2023-25: During the trial, defence maintains that accused is innocent; prosecution presents evidence, including Call Detail Records (CDRs), mobile location data
July 13, 2026: Trial court convicts Tahir Hussain, 4 men in the murder case
July 31: Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Singh sentences Tahir Hussain, 4 others to life sentence, calling the murder ‘barbaric, nauseating and sickening’
–IANS
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