Umesh Pal Murder Case: Atiq Ahmad Produced In Prayagraj Court; Police Seek 14-Day Remand

Atiq Ahmad was on Wednesday brought to the Naini Central Jail here from a Gujarat prison for the second time in about a fortnight.

PRAYAGRAJ: Gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad was produced in a Pryagraj court in the Umesh Pal murder case today where the Uttar Pradesh Police has urged the court to send the gangster to 14-day remand. According to Zee News, Ahmad's lawyer urged the court to reduce the police remand period and the arguments are going on in the court. Atiq Ahmad was on Wednesday brought to the Naini Central Jail here from a Gujarat prison for the second time in about a fortnight. Ahmad reached the jail at around 6 pm. The Uttar Pradesh police will seek his remand for interrogation in connection with the murder. He will be produced in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Dinesh Gautam on Thursday.

"Due to delay, he could not be produced in the court today," a senior police official said. Ahmad's brother Khalid Azim alias Ashraf, who was also brought to Naini jail from Bareilly, will be produced in the court in the same case. "We will seek in the court the police remand of Ahmad and his brother Ashraf as their interrogation is necessary to work out the case," the police official told PTI.

Umesh Pal, a key witness in the murder case of BSP MLA Raju Pal, and his two police security guards 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 Ahmad, his brother Ashraf, wife Shaista Parveen, 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), 506 (criminal intimidation), 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC, Section 3 of Explosive Act and Section 7 of Criminal Law Amendment Act.

A police team from Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday left with gangster-politician Ahmad from the high security Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad for Prayagraj by road. The UP Police had on March 26 also brought Ahmad from the Sabarmati jail to Prayagraj to produce him in a court in the 2006 Umesh Pal kidnapping case. On March 28, the court had sentenced Ahmad and two others to life imprisonment in the kidnapping case.

The 60-year-old former Samajwadi Party MP was brought back to the jail in Gujarat in a UP Police van on March 29, after a nearly 24-hour-long road journey from Prayagraj. The police convoy taking Ahmad to Prayagraj left the Sabarmati Jail on Tuesday evening and entered the Uttar Pradesh border from Jhansi at around 8.45 am. "I am totally reduced to dust, but please don't trouble the women and children of my family now," Ahmad told reporters from inside the police van on Wednesday.

While he was on the way, he spoke to the mediapersons from inside the police van. He pleaded the government to spare his family members, who are co-accused in several cases. "Hum aapke jariye government se kehna chahte hain, bilkul mitti me mil gaye hain. Ab hamari auraton aur bachchon ko pareshan na karein. (I want to tell the government through you (the media) that I am totally reduced to dust, but please don't trouble the women and children of my family now," Ahmad told a news channel from inside his police van between Jhansi and Prayagraj.

In 2006, Ahmad and his aides abducted Umesh Pal and forced him to give a statement in court in their favour. Umesh Pal had registered a complaint in this regard. The Supreme Court had in April 2019 directed that Ahmad be shifted to a high-security jail in Gujarat after he was accused of orchestrating the kidnapping and assault of a real estate businessman Mohit Jaiswal while in jail.

Ahmad has been named in more than 100 criminal cases, including the recent Umesh Pal murder case, police said. Among the most sensational murders in which Ahmad is allegedly involved was that of Raju Pal, the then Bahujan Samaj Party MLA who was shot dead in 2005. Ahmad last month moved the Supreme Court for protection, claiming he and his family have been falsely implicated as accused in the Umesh Pal murder case in Prayagraj and he may be killed in a fake encounter by the Uttar Pradesh Police.