Ex-AAP Councillor Tahir Hussain Gets Second Conviction In Cases Linked To 2020 Delhi Riots

Delhi's Karkardooma court on Saturday convicted former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Tahir Hussain of abetment of rioting in a case linked to arson in northeast Delhi during the 2020 riots. The court, however, acquitted 12 co-accused of the remaining charges in the case.

The order was passed by Additional Sessions Judge Sameer Bajpai at the Karkardooma Courts. The case relates to an incident of arson in the Dayalpur area of northeast Delhi.

According to LiveLaw, the FIR was registered under Sections 147, 148 and 149 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), relating to rioting, Section 427 for mischief causing damage to property, Section 436 for mischief by fire, and Section 120B for criminal conspiracy.

This is the second conviction of Hussain in cases related to the 2020 Delhi riots. He was previously convicted in the murder of Intelligence Bureau staffer Ankit Sharma, who was killed during the violence. Hussain was sentenced to life imprisonment in that case.

During the sentencing proceedings in the Sharma murder case, the prosecution had argued that the victim was abducted and brutally assaulted. Special Public Prosecutor Madhukar Pandey said Sharma had sustained 51 injuries, 18 of them caused by sharp-edged weapons.

“It is not a case where somebody was stabbed once or thrice,” Pandey had said, arguing that the accused continued to assault Sharma even after his death.

“The accused were not human beings, they were animals. They did not have respect for the dead and should therefore be kept behind bars and given the death sentence,” the prosecutor had said.

The court, while sentencing the convicts in the murder case, had observed that although the crime was brutal and Sharma was killed by a murderous mob, the prosecution had failed to establish that the convicts were beyond reform or that their release after serving their sentences would pose a threat to society.