All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen candidate from Delhi’s Mustafabad seat, Tahir Hussain, on Thursday filed his nomination papers and returned to Tihar jail hours later, the police said.

The former AAP councillor, who is in jail in connection with the 2020 riots in north-east Delhi, left the jail around 9.15 a.m. under heavy security and returned to custody at 2.16 p.m., a Tihar jail official said.

The Delhi High Court had on Tuesday granted custody parole to Mr. Hussain in a riots-related murder case to enable him to file his papers. Mr. Hussain has been lodged in jail since March 2020.

Reacting to the development, Kapil Mishra, BJP’s candidate from the Karawal Nagar constituency, said, candidates should be chosen on the basis of their work. “If parties give tickets to those who have harmed people, they will vote them out,” added Mr. Mishra, who is accused of making hate speeches in the run-up to the riots in February 2020, which left 53 people dead. Earlier, the High Court had once issued notice to him over a plea related to the riots. But no FIR was ever filed against him.