Newsmaker | Four decades of police records, 100 cases, 144 ‘gang members’: The long run of Atiq Ahmed

Ahmed’s lawyer Vijay Mishra says trials in 50 cases against him are pending.

For the record, Ahmed is currently lodged in a Gujarat jail in a 2016 case relating to assault on a faculty member belonging to an agriculture institute. He was shifted to Gujarat in 2019 on the Supreme Court’s direction.

However, that is perhaps the lesser known of the cases involving Ahmed who, from the infamous guest-house incident that changed the course of UP political history, to allegedly abducting a businessman, bringing him to a jail and getting him to sign some papers inside, is used to making more sensational headlines.

In the latest incident, on February 24, men allegedly linked to him chased down a witness, Umesh, in a case in which Ahmed is the prime accused and shot him dead in broad daylight – almost exactly the same way and in the same place that the first crime was committed. Apart from Ahmed, his wife Shaista Parveen and his youngest son are accused in the case; both are absconding.

Their two other sons are jailed in other cases.

The rise of Ahmed

The 60-year-old’s first run-in with the police is recorded as back as 1984 when he was booked for attempting a murder in Prayagraj.

Five years later, in 1989, Ahmed won his first election as an MLA from Allahabad West, as an Independent. After he retained his seat in the next two Assembly elections as well, also as an Independent, the SP opened its doors to him.

Then, in 1995, Ahmed came to notice with the guest-house incident. It involved the attack on the complex where then Chief Minister Mayawati was staying with her MLAs. Alleged MLAs and workers of the SP surrounded the guest-house and went on a rampage, angry over the BSP having broken ties with the SP and seeking out the BJP to form the government. Mayawati had to lock herself in a room while several of her MLAs were “captured”, and later claimed to have defected to the SP.

In 1996, Ahmed won from Allahabad West the fourth time, as an SP candidate.

Three years later, Ahmed moved to the Apna Dal, and in 2002, again won the seat. By 2004, it was the SP again for him, and this time he won from the Phulpur Lok Sabha constituency (a seat once represented by Jawaharlal Nehru).

A year later, came the case for which Ahmed finds himself in trouble now. In 2004, in the bypoll held for the Allahabad West seat, after Ahmed had moved to the Lok Sabha, BSP candidate Raju Pal defeated Ahmed’s brother Khalid Azim alias Ashraf, fighting on an SP ticket. In January 2005, Raju Pal was gunned down, along with two of his associates, and Ahmed was named as an accused along with Ashraf and others.

Ashraf now 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, the agency also booked Ahmed for a 2018 incident involving the alleged kidnapping of Lucknow-based businessman Mohit Jaiswal, who was taken to Deoria district jail, where Ahmed was lodged at the time. Jaiswal claimed he was forced to sign documents for property worth Rs 48 crore in favour of Ahmed’s associates. Ahmed’s eldest son Mohammad Umar, who is currently lodged in a Lucknow district jail, is a co-accused in the Jaiswal case.

The 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.

The wife

The killing of Umesh isn’t the first time Shaista Parveen finds herself in police records. There are at least three other cases registered against her since 2019 under the forgery and arms Act at the Colonelganj Police Station in Prayagraj. The matters are pending in court, said a police officer.

Earlier this year, in January, Parveen joined the BSP. After the police named her in the Umesh case, the BSP said Parveen will be expelled if she is proven guilty.

Still on the run, Parveen moved a local court in Allahabad 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.

Recently, Umesh’s wife Jaya met Raju’s wife Pooja, who is ironically now an SP MLA from Kaushambi, and has sought “Y” category security for herself and police protection for three eyewitnesses in her husband’s murder case.

The govt action

The Adityanath government, which has pledged to act against the “mafia”, claims to have seized properties worth Rs 350 crore linked to Ahmed. The Prayagraj district administration also says it has released properties amounting to Rs 751 crore forcibly occupied by Atiq and his associates.

Besides, the Enforcement Directorate is investigating a Prevention of Money Laundering Act case against Ahmed.