LUCKNOW: Gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed, awarded a life term in the Umesh Pal abduction case on March 28, got the biggest blow of his life when his third son, Asad, was killed in a police encounter on Thursday. It is the first personal loss he has suffered in his criminal history spanning four decades.
Police authorities said the murder of Umesh Pal hardly gave any tangible gain to Atiq and his gang. It was only a bid by his henchmen to re-establish fear among the people of Prayagraj. However, the move backfired big time. While Asad, 19, has now been killed, Atiq’s wife Shaista Parveen is still absconding. The third of the couple’s five sons, Asad was a first-year student at a law college.
The couple’s two elder sons -- Ali and Umar -- are jailed in other cases, while two minor ones are housed by the authorities in a shelter home.
Atiq’s first interface with the police goes back to 1984 when he was booked for attempting a murder in Prayagraj.
Five years later, he took the electoral plunge winning his first election as an MLA from Allahabad West, as an Independent in 1989. He retained his seat in the next two Assembly elections as well, also as an Independent.
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In 1995, Atiq joined the Samajwadi Party (SP) and came to notice when the guesthouse where the then BSP general secretary Mayawati was staying with her party MLAs was attacked. MLAs and workers of the SP allegedly surrounded the guest-house and went on a rampage, angry over the BSP having broken ties with them.
In 1996, Atiq won from Allahabad West for the fourth time, as an SP candidate. Three years later, he joined Apna Dal, and in 2002, again won the seat. In 2004, he contested from Phulpur Lok Sabha seat on an SP ticket and got elected.
In 2004, in the bypoll held for the Allahabad West seat, after Atiq had moved to the Lok Sabha, BSP candidate Raju Pal defeated his brother Ashraf, fighting on an SP ticket. In January 2005, Raju Pal was gunned down, along with two of his associates, and Atiq was named as an accused along with Ashraf and others. While Atiq now has over 100 cases lodged against him, his brother Ashraf has 52 cases against him and is currently lodged in a Bareilly jail.
With the SP in power in the state at the time, on the Supreme Court’s orders, the case was transferred to the CBI. It filed a chargesheet in 2019 against 10 people.
Subsequently, Atiq got booked for a 2018 incident involving the alleged abduction of a businessman Mohit Jaiswal, who was taken to Deoria district jail, where Atiq was lodged at the time. Jaiswal claimed he was forced to sign documents for property worth Rs 48 crore in favour of his associates.
In the course of his journey into the world of crime and establishing himself as the head of a crime syndicate registered in police records as IS 227, Atiq pushed his entire family into it. His eldest son Mohammad Umar, who is currently lodged in a Lucknow district jail, is a co-accused in the Jaiswal case. His second son, Mohammad Ali Ahmed, is currently in Naini jail for alleged involvement in a case of assault on a property dealer in December 2021.
Apart from the Umesh Pal killing, his wife Shaista Parveen has had at least three other cases registered against her since 2019 under forgery and illegal arms at the Colonelganj police station in Prayagraj. The cases are pending in court, said a police officer.
While on the run, Shaista Parveen moved a local court in Prayagraj saying that the police had “illegally” taken away two of her minor sons – apart from the three named in police cases or in jail – on the evening of February 24 and that she had no information about them. The police later told a local court that the boys had been found in Prayagraj and were admitted to a child protection home.
