LUCKNOW, India –
A former Indian lawmaker convicted of kidnapping and going through homicide and assault fees was shot useless alongside together with his brother in a dramatic assault that was caught stay on TV in northern India, officers stated Sunday.
Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf have been underneath police escort on their solution to a medical checkup at a hospital on Saturday evening when three males posing as journalists focused the 2 brothers from shut vary in Prayagraj metropolis in Uttar Pradesh state.
The boys rapidly surrendered to the police after the capturing, with at the least considered one of them chanting “Jai Shri Ram,” or “Hail Lord Ram,” a slogan that has develop into a battle cry for Hindu nationalists of their marketing campaign in opposition to Muslims.
Uttar Pradesh is ruled by India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Social gathering since 2017. Since then, over 180 individuals going through felony fees in India’s most populous state have been killed in so-called “police encounters” that rights teams say are sometimes extrajudicial killings.
Following Saturday’s capturing, authorities imposed a ban on the meeting of greater than 4 individuals throughout the state and likewise minimize web entry on cellphones in Prayagraj metropolis. The federal government additionally ordered a judicial probe headed by a retired choose.
Police officer Ramit Sharma stated the three assailants got here on bikes posing as journalists.
“They managed to achieve near Atiq and his brother on the pretext of recording a byte and fired at them from shut vary. Each sustained bullet accidents on the pinnacle,” he stated. “All of it occurred in seconds.”
A number of movies of Saturday’s capturing went viral on social media. It was initially broadcast stay on native TV channels because the brothers spoke to media whereas being taken to the hospital.
The footage exhibits somebody pulling a gun near Atiq Ahmad’s head. As he collapses, his brother can be shot. The video exhibits assailants repeatedly firing on the two males after each fell on the bottom.
Atiq Ahmad, 60, was jailed in 2019 after he was convicted of kidnapping a lawyer, Umesh Pal, who had testified in opposition to him as as a witness within the killing of a lawmaker in 2005. In February, Pal was additionally killed.
On Thursday, Atiq Ahmad’s teenage son and one other man, each of whom have been blamed for Pal’s dying, have been killed by police in what was described as a shootout.
Two weeks earlier, Atiq Ahmad had petitioned the Indian Supreme Courtroom for defense, saying there was an “open, direct and instant risk to his life” from state functionaries of Uttar Pradesh, in accordance with media stories. However the courtroom declined to intervene and as a substitute requested his lawyer to strategy the native state courtroom.
Atiq Ahmad was a state lawmaker 4 occasions and was additionally elected to India’s Parliament in 2004 from Uttar Pradesh’s Phulpur constituency, as soon as represented by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
He confronted greater than 100 felony circumstances and was among the many first politicians from Uttar Pradesh to be prosecuted underneath the stringent Gangster Act within the late Eighties. He additionally cultivated a Robin Hood picture amongst principally Muslim constituents and used to financially assist many poor households.
However he was additionally criticized for leveraging his political clout to develop a syndicate that was an lively participant in the actual property market amid allegations of compelled seize of properties and different crimes.
Opposition events criticized the killings as a safety lapse and accused the federal government of ruling by concern.
