A Delhi court on Friday sentenced former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain and four others to rigorous life imprisonment in connection with the murder of Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer Ankit Sharma during the 2020 riots in northeast Delhi.Additional Sessions Judge Parveen Singh announced the quantum of sentence for Tahir Hussain, Nazim, Kasim, Javed and Anas.The judgment was pronounced in the presence of Hussain and other convicts amid tight security. The courtroom was packed with lawyers and senior Delhi Police officials, including the Crime Branch’s Joint Commissioner and the DCP.The court also imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh on Hussain and Rs 25,000 each on the other four convicts. Earlier during the hearing, the Delhi Police had sought the death penalty for all five convicts, saying they had “fallen to the level of animals” while relentlessly assaulting the victim.Special Public Prosecutor Madhukar Pandey submitted that Sharma was abducted, relentlessly assaulted and killed by the convicts. They continued to torture him even after he had died, Pandey said.On July 13, nearly six years after the incident, the court convicted Hussain, Nazim, Kasim, Javed and Anas. Hussain was convicted under IPC sections 302 (murder), 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent to secretly and wrongfully 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).Following the verdict, Hussain said he would get justice from the Delhi High Court. As he was escorted out of the courtroom, he told reporters, “Justice will come from the High Court. It is never too late.”Reacting to the verdict, Delhi Law Minister Kapil Mishra described the sentence as “the beginning of justice” and said he hoped the Delhi High Court would enhance the punishment to the death penalty.In a post on X, Mishra said the manner in which Sharma was allegedly killed — claiming he was repeatedly stabbed and his body was later dumped in a drain — made the case fall under the “rarest of rare” category. He expressed hope that the high court would award capital punishment instead of life imprisonment.