A court in the Prayagraj district of India's Uttar Pradesh state on Tuesday handed a sentence of life imprisonment to notorious gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed and two others in the 2006 kidnapping case of lawyer Umesh Pal.
Ahmed’s brother Khalid Azim and six others have been acquitted in the case.
The Special Court for parliamentarians and state lawmakers bench, headed by Justice Dinesh Chandra Shukla, also announced compensation of INR 100,000 ($1,218) to the family of the deceased Pal and slapped all three convicts with a fine of INR 5,000 ($60).
Umesh Pal Kidnapping Case
Umesh Pal, a lawyer by profession, was shot dead on 24 February this year along with his two bodyguards.
In 2006, Pal was kidnapped by Atiq Ahmed and his gang at gunpoint on 28 February since the former happened to be the main witness in the murder of Uttar Pradesh lawmaker, Raju Pal. Ahmed was the prime accused in this murder.
It is said that after Umesh was abducted, Ahmed and his aide blackmailed him into speaking in favor of Ahmed in court and he subsequently gave a statement in court that Ahmed was not present when Raju Pal was murdered and that he didn’t want to testify.
However, after the change in state government in Uttar Pradesh, Umesh Pal in 2007 filed an abduction case against Ahmed, the trial of which began only in 2009.
In 2016, Umesh Pal filed a complaint against Ahmed, claiming that “an attempt was made to throw him from the fourth floor of the court premises to make him withdraw the case.”
The victim also appealed to the Prayagraj court for an accelerated hearing after the incident.
What is Known About Atiq Ahmed's Crimes
The 62-year-old gangster is infamous not just in Uttar Pradesh, but neighboring states as well.
Ahmed was first accused of murder in 1979. A little more than four decades later, in 2023, he has more than 100 police charges against him. The recent one is the murder of Umesh Pal in February.
According to Uttar Pradesh's state police records, Ahmed's gang consists of approximately 150 men.
In 1989, Ahmed contested the Uttar Pradesh legislative election from the Allahabad west seat for the first time and went on to set a record winning elections for five terms.
In 1989, 1991, and 1993 he won the election as an independent candidate. In 1996, he fought the state election as Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate and won.
In 1998, he joined another party – Apna Dal, and then lost the 1999 election from the Pratapgrah parliamentary constituency. During the 2002 state assembly elections, he again contested from the Allahabad West seat and won.
Next year, in 2003, he joined the Samajwadi Party and won the Phulpur parliamentary constituency in 2004.
Ahmed' stars turned unfavorable after 2004, as after winning the parliamentary election, he resigned from his state assembly seat. After his resignation, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Raju Pal won Allahabad's west seat. Ahmed’s brother also fought the election.
In 2005, Raju Pal was shot dead in daylight and Umesh Pal, who had been killed in February, was one of the witnesses in the case.
Subsequently, Raju Pal’s wife filed a complaint against Ahmed and seven others on charges of rioting, attempt to murder, murder, and criminal conspiracy. As the case gained media attention and political momentum, in 2008 Ahmed surrendered. He was released in 2012.
He stood in the 2014 general election but lost.
In 2017, he was arrested for assaulting faculty members of an agricultural research institute in Uttar Pradesh.
In June 2019, he was moved to the Sabarmati central jail in Gujarat following a Supreme Court order which accused him of orchestrating the kidnapping and assault of real estate businessman Mohit Jaiswal while in prison in Uttar Pradesh.
INTERESTING FACT: In 2019, while he was in jail, Ahmed fought an election against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi parliamentary constituency. He could barely muster 855 votes, however.
On Sunday, a police cavalcade brought Atiq Ahmed from the Sabarmati Jail to Prayagraj jail in Uttar Pradesh - a 1,200km road journey.