Gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad’s son Asad killed in UP Police encounter
UTTAR PRADESH,APR 13 : Gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad’s son Asad Ahmad, who was wanted in witness Umesh Pal’s murder case, has been killed in an encounter by the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) in Jhansi. Another accused Ghulam was killed too.
The encounter took place in the forest area of Jhansi-Babina road on Thursday.
Some sophisticated foreign-made weapons were recovered from them, said STF sources.
Asad Ahmad had a Rs 5 lakh bounty on his head.
Media reports say that the marriage of Asad was fixed with Atiq’s sister Ayesha Noori’s daughter. The two had gotten engaged last year.
Atiq Ahmad on Wednesday claimed he was being harassed in the Sabarmati Central Jail in Gujarat. He also claimed that his family was ruined. When reporters told him that the government has said he will be decimated, Ahmad claimed, “They have already decimated me. I am also being harassed in the Sabarmati jail.”
On March 28, the court there had sentenced Ahmad and two others to life imprisonment in the 2006 Umesh Pal kidnapping case while Atiq’s brother Ashraf and six others were acquitted by the court.
Umesh Pal, a key witness in the 2005 murder case of BSP MLA Raju Pal, and his two police security guards Sandeep Nishad and Raghvendra Singh were shot dead outside his home in Prayagraj’s Dhoomanganj area on February 24 this year.
Based on a complaint lodged by Umesh Pal’s wife Jaya Pal, a case was registered on February 25 against Atiq Ahmad, his wife Shaista Parveen, Atiq’s brother Ashraf, Atiq’s two sons, aides Guddu Muslim and Ghulam, and nine others.
The FIR was lodged under sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting armed with deadly weapons), 149 (unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC.
Ahmad is also an accused in the 2005 Raju Pal murder case.
On April 2, UP STF arrested Akhlaq Ahmad, a government doctor and the husband of Ayesha Noori.
Atiq’s brother-in-law Akhlaq, posted at the Abdullapur Community Health Centre, had not only provided shelter to the killers of Umesh Pal but also money when they reached Meerut after the murder, sources said.
This is Atiq Ahmad’s first conviction even though more than 100 cases were registered against the former Samajwadi Party MP over the years.
-PTI
