Atiq Ahmad and Ashraf updates: The three attackers have been identified by the police as Lovlesh, Sunny and Arun Maurya and they came posing as journalists.
New Delhi: Atiq Ahmed, the Uttar Pradesh gangster who faced at least 100 criminal cases, and his brother Ashraf Ahmed were shot dead on camera while they were being taken for a medical check-up in Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj on Saturday.
Atiq Ahmed, who was under police escort, was talking to reporters when a gun was pulled close to his head in Prayagraj, also known as Allahabad.
After the shots were fired on Saturday night, three men who had been posing as journalists quickly surrendered and were taken into custody.
Ahmed’s teenage son was shot dead by police days earlier.
Dozens of cases, including kidnapping, murder and extortion, were registered against Atiq Ahmed over the past two decades. A local court sentenced him and two others to life in jail in March this year in a kidnapping case.
Ahmed had previously claimed there was a threat to his own life from the police.
Video showed Ahmed and his brother, Ashraf, both in handcuffs, speaking to journalists on the way to a medical check-up at a hospital seconds before they were both shot.
Gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf were shot by unidentified assailants in UP’s Prayagraj. The murder of the dreaded gangster comes just days after his son was killed in an encounter with UP Police in Jhansi. Atiq Ahmed was accused in the 2005 BSP MLA Raju Pal murder case and also in the Umesh Pal murder case which happened in February this year. As many as three people were arrested. Meanwhile, internet services have been completely suspended in Prayagraj. Stay with TOI for live updates
Although a dreaded name, Atiq used to talk candidly to local journalists in informal sittings at regular intervals, as a neta, who won assembly elections from Allahabad’s City West constituency five times.
