"They want to kill me," Atiq Ahmad says; UP police escort to Prayagraj

A police team from Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday left with gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed from Sabarmati Central Jail for Prayagraj by road in connection with the Umesh Pal murder case, an official said.

"It is not fair; they want to kill me," Atiq Ahmed had claimed regarding the move.

Pal and his two police security guards were shot dead outside his home in Prayagraj's Dhoomanganj area on February 24 this year.

Based on a complaint lodged by Pal's wife Jaya Pal, a case was registered on February 25 against Ahmed, his brother Ashraf, wife Shaista Parveen, two sons, aides Guddu Muslim and Ghulam, and nine others.

The Uttar Pradesh Police had on March 26 also taken Ahmed from the Sabarmati jail in Gujarat's Ahmedabad city to Prayagraj in UP to produce him in a court.

On March 28, the court there had sentenced Ahmed and two others to life imprisonment in the 2006 Umesh Pal kidnapping case.

The 60-year-old former Uttar Pradesh MLA and Lok Sabha member was brought back to the high-security jail in Gujarat in a UP police van on March 29, after a nearly 24-hour-long road journey from Prayagraj.

In 2006, Atiq Ahmed and his aides abducted Umesh Pal and forced him to give a statement in court in their favour. Umesh Pal had registered a complaint in this regard.

The Supreme Court had in April 2019 directed that Ahmed be shifted to a high-security jail in Gujarat after he was accused of orchestrating the kidnapping and assault of a real estate businessman Mohit Jaiswal while in jail.

Ahmed has been named in more than 100 criminal cases, including the recent Umesh Pal murder case, police said.

Among the most sensational murders in which Ahmed is allegedly involved was that of Raju Pal, the MLA from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) who was shot dead in 2005.

Umesh Pal, a key witness in this murder case, was gunned down outside his residence in Prayagraj on February 24 this year.

Ahmed last month moved the Supreme Court for protection, claiming he and his family have been falsely implicated as accused in the Umesh Pal murder case in Prayagraj and he may be killed in a fake encounter by the Uttar Pradesh Police.

In his plea, Ahmed had said the UP Police were in all likelihood seeking his transit remand and police remand to take him from Ahmedabad to Prayagraj and he "genuinely apprehends that he may be eliminated during this transit period".