Umesh Pal murder case: Gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad again taken to UP for questioning

Ahmedabad, April 11 (IANS) Gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad was on Tuesday again taken from the Sabarmati Central Jail here to UP by a team of Uttar Pradesh Police in connection with the Umesh Pal murder case.

Earlier, Ahmad was taken from Ahmedabad to Prayagraj by the Uttar Pradesh Police on March 26 to produce him in court. On March 28, the court sentenced Ahmad and two others to life imprisonment in the 2006 Umesh Pal kidnapping case.

Ahmad and his aides had abducted Umesh Pal in 2006 and forced him to give a statement in court in their favour.

After the sentence was passed, the 60-year-old former Uttar Pradesh MLA and Lok Sabha member was transported back to the high-security jail in Gujarat on March 29.

The Supreme Court had ordered Ahmad to be transferred to a high-security jail in Gujarat in April 2019 after he was accused of orchestrating the kidnapping of real estate businessman Mohit Jaiswal while in jail. Ahmad has been named in over 100 criminal cases, including the recent Umesh Pal murder case, according to the police.

Raju Pal, an MLA from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), was shot dead in 2005 in one of murders Ahmad is allegedly involved in. Umesh Pal, a key witness in this murder case, was killed outside his residence in Prayagraj on February 24 this year.

Ahmad moved the Supreme Court last month for protection, claiming that he and his family have been falsely accused in the Umesh Pal murder case in Prayagraj, and that he might be killed in a fake encounter by the Uttar Pradesh Police. In his plea, Ahmad had said that the Uttar Pradesh Police were likely seeking his transit remand and police remand to take him from Ahmedabad to Prayagraj and that he "genuinely apprehends that he may be eliminated during this transit period."