New Delhi: Delhi Police on Monday sought the death penalty for former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Tahir Hussain and four other convicts in the murder case of Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer Ankit Sharma, arguing before a Delhi court that the crime fell within the “rarest of rare” category.
The submissions were made before Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Singh during the hearing on the quantum of sentence for the five convicts.
Special Public Prosecutor Madhukar Pandey told the court that Sharma was abducted, brutally assaulted and murdered by the convicts during the 2020 northeast Delhi riots. He argued that the accused continued attacking the victim even after his death, describing the crime as exceptionally brutal.
According to the prosecution, Sharma’s body bore 51 injuries, including 18 caused by sharp-edged weapons, which, it argued, reflected the deliberate and heinous nature of the attack.
Pandey told the court that the accused had acted with extreme cruelty and that the offence was a cold-blooded murder warranting the maximum punishment under the law.
The prosecution urged the court to impose the death sentence on all five convicts, contending that the gravity of the crime justified capital punishment.
