Tahir Hussain’s life term exposes AAP’s criminal face: Delhi BJP chief

New Delhi, July 31 (AHN) Delhi BJP President Harsh Malhotra on Friday welcomed a city court's decision to sentence the then AAP municipal councillor Tahir Hussain to a life term in a murder case linked to the 2020 communal riots, saying that the verdict has exposed the real criminal face of the Arvind Kejriwal-led party.

He stated that the judgment has separated fact from fiction by establishing how AAP-backed miscreants spread riots in East Delhi and brutally murdered Intelligence Bureau officer Ankit Sharma.

Malhotra said that AAP National Convenor Arvind Kejriwal should be ashamed for not only sheltering such criminals within the party but also for repeatedly using his influence to protect them.

He added that the country recently witnessed how individuals associated with the Aam Aadmi Party attempted to enter the Parliament premises.

The Delhi BJP President said that the true character of the AAP is now well understood not only by the people of Delhi but also by the people of Punjab.

While the people of Delhi voted the party out last year, the people of Punjab are now preparing to remove it from power as well, said Malhotra.

Delhi Minister Kapil Mishra welcomed the court verdict while Hussain told media persons 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.”

Six years after Sharma was brutally stabbed to death during the 2020 North-East Delhi riots, an Additional Sessions Court on Friday sentenced 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”.

Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Singh sentenced Tahir Hussain 4 others to life sentences, calling the murder ‘barbaric, nauseating and sickening’.