New Delhi: The Delhi High Court lowered Ariz Khan’s death sentence from a trial court to life in jail on Thursday, upholding his conviction in the 2008 Batla House encounter case.
On August 18, the court postponed deciding whether to confirm Khan’s death sentence in the case involving the murders of Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma and two alleged Indian Mujahideen terrorists in Jamia Nagar.
Khan was relieved by a panel of judges, including Justices Siddharth Mridul and Amit Sharma, who commuted his death sentence to life in jail.
The high court had earlier received a reference to confirm the death sentence handed to Khan.
On September 19, 2008, the Special Cell of the Delhi Police conducted an encounter at Batla House in Jamia Nagar, days after the series of explosions that rocked the nation’s capital and left over 35 people dead and over 150 injured.
Ariz Khan was convicted for the murder of police inspector Sharma and other offenses on March 8, 2021. He was sentenced to death on March 15, 2021, with a fine of Rs 11 lakh, while another convict, Shahzad Ahmed, was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Khan, who had run away and was labeled a proclaimed offender, was given the death punishment by the trial court, which described the case as one of the “rarest of the rare.”
February 14, 2018, saw his arrest. He was allegedly present at Batla House and managed to slip up the police during the confrontation, according to the police.
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