AAP suspends Tahir Hussain after he is named in FIR for IB staffer Ankit Sharma’s murder

india

Updated: Feb 27, 2020 22:28 IST

Intelligence Bureau staffer Ankit Sharma’s father has named Aam Aadmi Party councillor Tahir Hussain in the FIR for his kidnapping and murder, a senior Delhi Police said on Thursday evening. The officer told Hindustan Times that the FIR was registered on the complaint filed by the young man’s father Ravinder Kumar. Hussain was suspended from the party soon after.

“We have registered a case of murder and kidnapping on the complaint of Ankit Sharma’s father. Hussain has been named by Sharma’s father in the FIR. The case is registered at Dayalpur police station,” a senior Delhi Police officer said.

Late on Thursday evening, Tahir Hussain was suspended by the Aam Aadmi Party.

Just hours earlier, the police had set up two special teams - each under a Deputy Commissioner of Police - to probe the 50-odd cases registered in connection with the communal riots that broke out in east Delhi earlier this week. Thirty-eight people have died in the violence; scores of people are still in hospital.

Ankit Sharma, a security assistant with the intelligence agency, had gone missing on Tuesday, soon after he returned from work around 4.30 pm. He saw some commotion outside and stepped out to see what was happening. Ankit’s brother Ankur had alleged that Hussain’s men caught him and his two friends and took them away.

Ankit’s body was found in the nearby drain on Wednesday morning after some women told the authorities that a mob had dumped some bodies in the drain and then rolled cement-laden sacks on it in a bid to drown it.

Sharma’s relatives had accused Tahir Hussain, Aam Aadmi Party councillor from the Nehru Vihar ward, of plotting his death. “The mob that snatched and killed my brother was operating from Hussain’s house,” Sharma’s brother, Ankur said.

The 26-year-old’s family also told the police that some of the men who used captured Ankit were using Hussain’s house as their base.

Hussain has insisted that he was innocent and claimed he had moved out of the house a day before Ankit was killed as he feared for his own safety.

“I worked to stop violence, I’m innocent. I stopped people from climbing up my building,” news agency ANI quoted Hussain. He also claimed that Delhi police personnel were present at his house till 4 pm on Feb 25, the day Ankit is believed to have been murdered.

The police haven’t commented on this claim but the BJP has been piling pressure on AAP over his alleged involvement.

Leaders of Tahir Hussain’s party had initially come out in defence of the municipal councillor who had declared Rs 17 crores in assets ahead of the 2017 civic polls. By evening, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said if Tahir Hussain was proven to be guilty, he should be given double the punishment.

“But there should be no politics on the issue of national security,” Kejriwal said.