The state of Uttar Pradesh is reeling from the killing of Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf Ahmed, former Samajwadi Party MP and gangsters, while in police custody in Prayagraj. The incident has sparked concerns about the rising crime rate in the state and has prompted a judicial panel to investigate the incident — a report by Arindam for Different Truths.
Former Samajwadi Party MP and alleged gangster Atiq Ahmad, aged 65, and his brother Ashraf Ahmad, aged 52, were killed on Saturday night in Prayagraj while being escorted by the Uttar Pradesh police to a hospital for a check-up. The shooting occurred at Motilal Nehru Hospital’s gate in front of at least two dozen armed police personnel. The incident was captured on television at 10:35 pm.
According to a police source, the assailants, Luvlesh Tiwari, Sani Kumar, and Arun Maurya, had posed as journalists. While media personnel followed the duo, the shooting was captured on camera. The assailants fired ten rounds for 75 seconds. The three killers had surrounded Atiq and Ashraf from three sides and rained bullets on the duo to ensure their death. The killers surrendered to the police, casting away their weapons, a fake TV microphone, and a camera.
Unconfirmed details suggest that these three assailants had come from elsewhere and had conducted a thorough reconnaissance. However, the police sources had not revealed further information about the killers.
The two gangsters-turned-politicians were in police custody and were brought to Prayagraj from their respective Sabarmati and Bareilly jails for questioning in connection with the Umesh Pal murder case. At the crime scene, Atiq and Ashraf were lying on the ground with blood pouring out of their heads, and the police allowed the media to film the scene for 20 minutes before cordoning off the area and removing the bodies.
Officials have enforced Section 144 of the CrPC in all districts of Uttar Pradesh by the state government after Atiq and Ashraf were brazenly gunned down in Prayagraj. Security has also been increased in the state capital and the chief minister’s residence. A three-member judicial panel was set up to investigate the shootout, and 17 police personnel were suspended in connection with the double murder in police custody.
Following the incident, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath held discussions with Special DG (Law & Order) Prashant Kumar and DGP Rajkumar Vishwakarma. A flag march was conducted by the police in the Chakia locality, where Atiq’s ancestral residence is located. Internet services have been suspended in ultra-sensitive and sensitive localities of Prayagraj, and the district borders have been sealed.
In a separate incident on April 13, Atiq’s son Asad Khan and alleged henchman Ghulam Hassan were killed in a police encounter in Jhansi, and their last rites were held earlier on the day of the shooting. Asad was also a suspect in the Umesh Pal murder case.
AIMIM Chief Asaduddin Owaisi and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav commented on the incident, expressing concern over the rise in crime in the state and the increased morale of criminals. Akhilesh Yadav tweeted that the alleged encounter killings are creating an environment of fear among the public, and some people may be deliberately creating this situation. Meanwhile, Owaisi blamed Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi’s failure to maintain law and order in the state for the incident and criticised those who celebrate encounter killings for this murder.
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The cult of instant justice may appear a very utopian idea when we watch it in the movies, but when it is practised in reality, then it is like turning of the evolutionary clock back, a kind of regression into some sort of tribal past. It simply evokes the idea of banana republic. If such acts of instant justice are endorsed, then the very existence of an elaborate justice system appears irrelevant. Why have courts of law and other juridical structures at all if the job of dispensing justice is allowed to be carried out by mobs or armed goons? There’s no place for sympathy for a gangster arrested by a state police, but short circuiting the justice route is also a matter of worry. Our country is not going to earn any plaudits on this account from anywhere except from some misguided people who don’t understand how the miscarriage of justice has the potential to throw our country into such a state of turmoil where people would take law into their own hands at the drop of a hat and dispense instant justice.
I agree with you, Swaraj Raj, Sir. The boundaries between the ‘real’ and the ‘reel’ have blurred. It’s indeed sad that custodial murders are a reality in today’s India. What is worse is that there is no accountability for such acts. The meekest seem to get punished – the suspension of seventeen police officials, though the suspension is no punishment. Furthermore, we often lock the stable after the horse has bolted – it’s too little, too late!
It is puzzling that armed police stood by while the killers fired ten rounds in 75 seconds!
That’s true. Later reports stated that these three criminals fired more than 20 rounds. A judicial panel is probing the custodial murder, Azam Ji.