LUCKNOW: With the UP police in an overdrive to crack the murder of lawyer Umesh Pal and his two police gunners, Samajwadi Party national general secretary and party’s Rajya Sabha member Ram Gopal Yadav created a flutter by claiming that one of the sons of jailed gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad would be eliminated in police encounter in a day or two.
While interacting with media persons at his native place Etawah, Yadav said the way UP police was going about in Umesh Pal murder case, it won’t be surprising if one of the sons of Atiq Ahmad was shot dead in a day or two.
Significantly, UP police have killed two of the 19 accused—Arbaaz, 22 and Vijay Chaudhury alias Usman alias Naan Baba, 30 -- in encounters so far. In all, 17 persons have been booked for the broad daylight murder of Umesh Pal, the prime witness in the 2005 Raju Pal murder case, at Dhumanganj in Prayagraj on February 24.
While eight persons named in the FIR include Atiq Ahmad, his wife Shaista, their two sons and Atiq’s brother Ashraf, Arman, Guddu Muslim and Ghulam, nine assailants are unidentified.
“Unable to get the real culprits, UP police, under immense pressure from the top, are targetting anyone whom they are finding,” said Yadav adding that the action in connection with Umesh Pal case with two encounters was not in consonance with the Constitution of India which guaranteed right to life to everyone.
“They nabbed Atiq Ahmad’s two minor sons and one of them will be killed in a few days,” he claimed.
“The encounters conducted by the police during the last couple of days seem to be in violation of human rights. The police authorities should not forget that when the dispensation changes, such cases reopen and action is always taken against police officers while the politicians go unscathed,” he added.
Meanwhile, responding to Ram Gopal Yadav’s statement, UP deputy CM Brajesh Pathak said that the state government would round up all the accused one by one without any discrimination. “We are committed to ensure strictest punishment to the culprits,” said Pathak.
Over 100-odd criminal cases have been pending against Atiq Ahmed while his brother Ashraf has 52 cases, wife Shaista Praveen has three, and sons Ali and Umar Ahmad have four and one cases, respectively, against them.
Meanwhile, Ahmed's wife has moved High Court claiming that her two minor sons were missing since they were picked up by the police recently. The police said the two boys were lodged in a juvenile detention centre but Shaista Parveen said that she had doubt over the police claims and the presence of her sons in juvenile home.