Ariz Khan, convicted of the murder of a Delhi Police inspector, has been given the death penalty.
Earlier on Monday, a Delhi court had reserved its order on the quantum of sentence for Ariz Khan, who was allegedly associated with terror outfit Indian Mujahideen and the infamous Battle House case. Last week, he was held guilty of Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma’s death. Apart from awarding him the death penalty, the Delhi court also imposed a total fine of Rs 11 lakh on Ariz Khan.
Found guilty under section 302 of the IPC, Ariz Khan could have been sentenced to death or handed life imprisonment. It was up to the court to decide whether the case of inspector Sharma’s murder could be identified as the rarest of rare cases or not. But calling the case ‘rarest of rare’, he was sentenced to death by Additional Sessions Judge Sandeep Yadav. While demanding the death penalty, the prosecution had argued that the convict is a “menace to the society and would continue to be so, threatening its peaceful and harmonious coexistence.”
The court said ₹ 10 lakh should be immediately released to the family members of Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma.
Additional Public Prosecutor AT Ansari told the court that this was a gruesome murder of a law enforcement officer and defender of justice while discharging his lawful public duty, and therefore, a serious exercise must be undertaken for determining the quantum of sentence.
The prosecution contended that while the accused was “involved in several bomb blasts in Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, and UP, in which several innocent citizens of this country were killed, convict still continued to commit a murder of police officer.”
The court had said on March 8 that it was “duly proved that Ariz Khan and his associates caused murder of police official and fired gunshot on the police officers”.
Khan, a BTech graduate, was inculcated into the jihadi network by Atif Amin, who died in the Delhi shootout. After the 2008 blasts, he had shifted his base to Nepal and acquired a Nepal passport under the name Salim. He opened a restaurant there and also taught students.
He also got in touch with Riyaz Bhatkal who motivated him to relaunch the terror organization, Indian Mujahideen, and visited Saudi Arabia in 2014 to strengthen the organisation. He returned to India in 2017 from Saudi Arabia to lay the groundwork for IM’s revival but later in February 2018, he was arrested at the Banbasa border point between India and Nepal.
Reacting to the verdict, I&B Minister Prakash Javadekar said in a tweet on Monday, “Delhi court’s verdict on Batla House encounter today thoroughly exposes the terrorist sympathizers and doubters lobby in the country.”
