Ex-AAP councillor Tahir Hussain confesses to being Delhi riots mastermind: Report

File image: Twitter/ @tahirhussainaap

Delhi Police’s Special Investigation Team (STF) team, on August 2, claimed that former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Tahir Hussain had admitted to having a role in February’s riots in northeast Delhi, according to a report by Zee News.

The report cites police as saying that the now-suspended AAP councillor allegedly revealed during the interrogation that he had wanted to teach Hindus a lesson using his political power and money.

He told police that he was the mastermind of the riots in northeast Delhi against the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the report suggests.

The news report further suggests that Hussain told police officials that he had used support from Khalid Saifi, former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Umar Khalid, Ishrat Jahan and Popular Front of India (PFI) member Danish.

Hussain reportedly told the police that he had been aggrieved after abrogation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, the Supreme Court’s ruling in favour of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya and the Centre passing CAA.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the report.

Hussain has been named as an accused in the murder of an Intelligence Bureau (IB) staffer whose body was pulled out of a drain in Chand Bagh with as many as 30 stab wounds.

At least 50 people were killed and over 200 injured in the communal violence that broke out in northeast Delhi on February 24 after clashes between groups supporting and opposing CAA spiralled out of control. As many as 690 cases have been registered in the matter.