Arshad Shaikh analyses the various aspects of the brutal slaying of former lawmaker Atiq Ahmed in Prayagraj (Allahabad). His coldblooded murder under police protection on live TV by a gun-toting team of three is unprecedented and highly disturbing. The gruesome drama surrounding the death of Atiq along with his brother Khalid Azim (Ashraf) is a direct snub to the rule of law. The killing of Atiq’s accomplices and his son Asad in police encounters heralds a new culture of normalising extra-judicial killings. It is a direct challenge to democracy and the “due process” of law. Such trends of meting out instant justice must be resisted if we want to preserve our society from the perils of “gun culture” and the prevalence of the police becoming “judge-jury-executioner” all rolled into one.
Atiq Ahmed was a former Member of Parliament and a four-time MLA from the Allahabad-West constituency. He had more than 160 criminal cases registered against him. Atiq was an alleged “gangster turned politician” and accused of running an extensive mafia specialising in extortion, kidnapping, and murder.
In 2004, Atiq vacated his seat as an MLA to become a Member of Parliament from the prestigious Phulpur constituency as a Samajwadi Party candidate. However, his brother Ashraf unexpectedly lost the vacated seat to Raju Pal of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Raju Pal was killed in 2005, and Ashraf won the subsequent by-election. Umesh Pal, a lawyer and an associate of Raju, testified against Atiq and Ashraf, accusing them of murdering Raju.
Interestingly, the CBI took over the case of Raju’s murder in 2016, and concluded that Umesh was hand in glove with Atiq and was not present at the murder spot of Raju. Umesh Pal joined the BJP in 2019 and registered various property-related complaints against Atiq in the last few years. On 24 February 2023, Umesh was shot and killed.
Again, Atiq and Ashraf were accused of orchestrating the murder of Umesh. On 27 February 2023, the UP Police killed Arbaaz, the alleged driver of the car used in the killing of Umesh Pal. On 01 March 2023, the house of Zafar Khalid, an alleged aide of Atiq, was demolished in Prayagraj, claiming that it was illegally constructed. The next day, a two-storey building owned by Safdar Ali was demolished. Safdar was an alleged arms dealer and was linked with Atiq. Vijay Chaudhary, who allegedly fired the first shot against Umesh, was killed by the UP Police in an encounter on 06 March 2023.
Atiq, who was lodged in Sabarmati jail (Ahmedabad), was brought to Prayagraj to face the verdict in Umesh’s kidnapping. Before embarking on his journey from Ahmedabad to Pryagraj, Atiq told reporters, “I know their programme…they want to murder me.” Atiq was convicted on 28 March 2023 and awarded life imprisonment for abducting Umesh in 2007.
Atiq’s son Asad and his accomplice were killed in an encounter by the UP Police in Jhansi on 13 April 2023. Meanwhile, two weeks before Atiq’s death, the Supreme Court of India refused to give him relief as he pleaded for protection from the UP Police whom he thought would kill him in a fake encounter. Atiq and Ashraf were killed by three assailants on 15 April as they were brought to a Prayagraj Hospital for a medical check-up. The brothers were killed at point-blank range while talking to the media. The shootout continued for just 22 seconds. The police arrested all three assailants, who supposedly did not try to escape.
It is probably the first time that a high-profile accused was killed in full public glare on live television and under the protection of a large and armed police force.
‘MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE’
Many human rights organisations and newspaper editorials have raised uncomfortable questions about Atiq’s killing. The Indian Express editorial dated 17 April 2023 asks – “Has the state’s message to the police that they can get away with murder, forget due process, reached the aamaadmi, too? When the alleged assailants say they killed because they were sure “this would benefit us in the future”, has the Encounter Raj come home? In UP, does anyone with a gun claim a licence to kill?”
Former Supreme Court Judge, Justice Madan Lokur gave an interview to Karan Thapar for the Wire. When asked about the spate of Atiq’s accomplices being killed in police encounters, the former apex court judge said – “Well it can’t be a coincidence you know. Maybe one person gets killed, and two persons get killed; perhaps that can be passed off as a coincidence. But six people getting killed, it can’t be a coincidence you know; if it’s a coincidence, it’s too much of a coincidence. There’s something much more to it than meets the eye and it needs to be thoroughly investigated.”
The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) also asked some pertinent questions like – “Why Atiq Ahmed and his brother were not transported by ambulance, why the medical check-up was at such an unusual time late at night and why despite the security concerns, the police permitted such a media meet in an open space and in public. The other question is why the police did not seek police custody of those who did the shooting.”Was it an intelligence failure or something else? Such a meticulously planned operation and that too on live TV cannot be conducted by common criminals. If that is the case then it poses very serious questions about the credibility of our law enforcement.
ENCOUNTER CULTURE
Official data says, there have been more than 10,900 police encounters in which 183 criminals have been killed, 5,046 injured, and 23,300 arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police since Yogi Adityanath became Chief Minister in March 2017. Thirteen police officers lost their lives in these encounters and 1,443 were injured. A police encounter does not carry any judicial authorisation.
In the “Om Prakash &Ors vs State of Jharkhand &Anr” case, a two-judge bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai of the Supreme Court of India ruled, “It is not the duty of the police officers to kill the accused merely because he is a dreaded criminal. Undoubtedly, the police have to arrest the accused and put them up for trial. This court has repeatedly admonished trigger-happy police personnel, who liquidate criminals and project the incident as an encounter. Such killings must be deprecated. They are not recognised as legal by our criminal justice administration system. They amount to State-sponsored terrorism.”
This burgeoning and normalisation of ‘encounter culture’ is a grave violation of our Constitution (Article 21 – protection of life and liberty, Article 14 – right to equality and hence entitlement to a fair investigation and trial).
While it is true, that our justice dispensation system is slow, providing false evidence and witnesses turning hostile after receiving bribes or threats to their lives is common; this still cannot be an alibi to abandon the due process of law and award justice through the barrel of the gun.It would be akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
“Audi alteram partem” means to listen to the other side. This principle dictates the judicial norm that no person should be judged without a fair hearing. The Deccan Herald editorial (17 April) correctly observes, “When the police overstep their boundaries and enforce vigilante justice, the whole edifice of law and order, supported by the Constitution, crumbles. The lawless violence wielded by the state against citizens is corrosive, and will damage the state and society.”