NEW DELHI: Two men sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Intelligence Bureau (IB) official Ankit Sharma during the 2020 North East Delhi riots have challenged their conviction and sentence before the higher court.The convicts, Nazim and Kasim, were among five people convicted by the Karkardooma court in Delhi in the murder case. The court convicted them and three others, including former MCD councillor Tahir Hussain, on July 13 and sentenced them to life imprisonment on July 31.

'No connection at all with Tahir'Speaking to ANI earlier, Mohammad Asif, the brother of convicts Nazim and Kasim, claimed that his brothers had been falsely implicated in the case and denied any connection with Tahir Hussain.

"We will appeal in the High Court. One of my brothers, the younger one, Kasim, lived in the village. The other one too had gone to the village two days before the incident. Tahir Hussain's house is very far away; we had no connection at all," Asif said.Sharma, an IB official, was killed during the communal violence that broke out in North East Delhi in February 2020. His body was later recovered from a drain in the Dayal Pur area.