Know Motive Behind Atiq Ahmed Killing; Assailants Shot With Turkey-Made Pistols As Used By Moosewala Killers

Lucknow: Prayagraj police on Sunday registered an FIR against the three assailants, who allegedly fired around 44 shots at the handcuffed gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf.

“The three assailants have been identified as Lavlesh Tiwari (22) of Banda, Mohit alias Sunny (23) of Hamirpur and Arun Maurya (18) of Kasganj,” Shahganj police station SHO Rajesh Kumar Maurya was quoted as saying by PTI on Sunday.

The trio have been booked under Sections 302 (Punishment for murder) and 307 (Attempt to murder) of the Indian Penal Code along with Sections 3, 7, 25 and 27 of the Arms Act. They used the Zigana pistol, the same Turkey-manufactured weapon which was used to kill Sidhu Moosewala, media reports said, adding that these pistols cost between Rs 6 and 7 lakh.

The FIR further said that the three shooters confessed to having killed the two gangster brothers “to become popular and big gangsters”.

The killing of the two gangster brothers was caught live on camera. They were shot dead at point-blank range by those arrested posing as journalists in the middle of a media interaction while being escorted by police for a medical check-up at Colvin Hospital in Prayagraj on Saturday night.

Atiq Ahmad was shot dead on the same day his son Asad Ahmad, killed in an alleged encounter with UP police in Jhansi on April 13, was buried. The former Samajwadi Party (SP) MP and his brother Ashraf were brought to Prayagraj for a court hearing in connection with the Umesh Pal murder case. “Since the time we got to know about the police custody of Atiq and Ashraf, we were planning to murder them. So we posed as journalists and when we got the right opportunity, we pulled the trigger and implemented the plan,” one of the accused told police.

Pal, who was killed allegedly by Atiq’s henchmen led by his son Asad on February 24, was a main witness in the 2005 Raju Pal murder case in which Atiq was the prime accused. He was sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment in Pal’s abduction case on March 28.

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has formed a three-member judicial commission to probe the killing of the gangsters brother.