NEW DELHI: Ariz Khan, who is accused of being an IM operative and was convicted a week ago for the murder of Delhi Police inspector Mohan Chand Sharma during the Batla House encounter in 2008, was on Monday awarded the death penalty. Additional sessions judge Sandeep Yadav held it to be "rarest of rare" case owing to Khan's "despicable act" that had "forfeited his right to live".
"After balancing the mitigating circumstances against aggravating circumstances, it is concluded that... the convict deserves the maximum sentence provided under law," the order noted.
"The most appropriate sentence for a convict like Ariz Khan will be the death penalty. The interest of justice will be met if the convict is awarded death penalty," it stated. Khan was also slapped with a Rs 10-lakh fine which will be given to Sharma's family. The court said it could "hardly" find any mitigating circumstances.
Act of firing at police without provocation shows convict an enemy of the state: Court
He was also convicted for other offences — including attempt to murder, voluntarily causing grievous hurt to deter public servant from his duty, and assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty — for which he was awarded varying jail terms and fined Rs 1 lakh.
Khan’s counsel, M S Khan, had argued that the case was identical to that of another convict, Shahzad Ahmed, who had earlier been awarded life imprisonment. Public prosecutor A T Ansari, however, submitted that Khan was facing blast cases in other cities as well, indicating his “remorselessness”.
“Deleterious impact of crime on social order and human psyche added to the list of aggravating circumstances. Unbearable miseries inflicted by the convict do constitute aggravating circumstances. Nature of the offence and manner of committing the crime aroused extreme indignation to society in this case,” it observed. The court held that the cops, including Sharma, had gone to nab the people involved in the preceding blasts and had no intention to kill the occupants of the flat, adding that some of the members of the police team were not even carrying arms.
“It is, therefore, obvious that Ariz Khan, along with his accomplices, fired at the police officials without being challenged, instinctively and while doing so killed one of the raiding police officials and fatally injured another,” said the order.
Khan’s “abhorrent and brutal act” of having fired at the police party without any provocation had itself shown that he was “not only a threat to the society but enemy of the state”, the judge wrote.
Referring to Khan's alleged involvement in other blast cases in Jaipur, Ahmedabad and UP, the court noted that hundreds of innocents were killed and injured and this had demonstrated that he continued to be a threat to society and the nation.
“The whole family of the victim (inspector Sharma) suffered mental trauma… The old parents of the deceased have gone through severe mental setbacks as the deceased was their only son... both children’s education suffered adversely,” the court noted.
The death penalty order was sent to the Delhi high court for confirmation.