He was no ordinary UP bahubali. He had over 100 cases but zero convictions. He voted in Parliament on furlough when Manmohan’s government risked falling. The Don made judges reluctant to hear his bail pleas and cops were too nervous to keep him in their jails. Here’s how Atiq Ahmed rose and fell.
On Tuesday, a Prayagraj court in Uttar Pradesh pronounced criminal-politician Atiq Ahmed (61) and two other accused guilty in the 2006 Umesh Pal kidnapping case. The court sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Umesh Pal was shot dead in Prayagraj in February this year allegedly by multiple shooters of Atiq. Two police bodyguards accompanying Umesh Pal were also killed in the shootout. The hearing in that case is going on.
Umesh Pal was a witness in the 2005 murder of BSP MLA Raju Pal. As an independent candidate, Atiq had defeated Raju Pal from the Allahabad (now Prayagraj) West assembly seat in 2002. But when Atiq won the 2004 Lok Sabha election from Phulpur (a constituency held by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru), he vacated his seat.
Atiq’s brother, Ashraf, who was acquitted on Tuesday in the kidnapping case but is facing over 50 FIRs, contested the Allahabad West bypoll but lost to Raju Pal. In 2005, Raju Pal was shot dead. It was alleged that Atiq hatched the conspiracy and Ashraf killed him. The hearing in the Raju Pal murder case is also going on.
Tuesday’s conviction, in the Umesh Pal kidnapping case, is the first for Atiq, who faces over 100 cases including those of extortion, kidnapping and murder, lodged against him over four decades.
For Tuesday’s hearing, Atiq was brought from the Sabarmati jail, as media cameras tailed the police cavalcade and he expressed fears that he might be “encountered” during the 24-hour road journey, which was also seen to bolster CM Yogi Adityanath’s anti-criminal image. However, Atiq had to be sent to Gujarat as jail superintendents in Uttar Pradesh were not ready to keep him.
All this explains Atiq Ahmed’s links with what happened to Raju Pal and Umesh Pal. But Atiq’s shadow of crime over Uttar Pradesh was much bigger. Let’s start from the start to understand that and also see how the beginning of the downfall came about for one of the biggest don-turned-politicians in the state where over 50 per cent of MLAs have criminal cases against them.
ENTRY INTO CRIME WORLD
Atiq was born in Allahabad (now Prayagraj) in 1962. His father drove a horse-cart in the town for a living. Atiq dropped out after flunking his high school examination. He didn’t lose much time figuring out how to deal with poverty. He began by stealing coal from trains and selling it to make money. He soon moved to intimidating contractors to bag government tenders for railway scrap metal.
In 1979, Atiq, all of 17, was accused of murder in Allahabad. Soon, he was running a network of several gangsters in the state. His was the final word in Allahabad, Phulpur and nearby areas.
POLITICS AND CRIME
Uttar Pradesh, like many other states, has had a symbiotic relationship between crime and politics. At 5 feet 6 inches, Atiq had no competition in the Allahabad region in 1989 when his biggest rival, Shaukat Ilahi, was killed in a police encounter. In 1989, Atiq, by now an undisputed bahubali, fought his first election from the Allahabad West assembly seat as an Independent candidate and won. In fact, he won this seat five consecutive times from 1989 to 2002 — the first three times as an Independent, then as a Samajwadi Party contestant and finally as the Apna Dal nominee.