Our 'mafiagiri' finished long back, we're now just being hounded: Atiq Ahmed

PRAYAGRAJ: Brought here on Wednesday from Sabarmati Jail for interrogation in Umesh Pal murder case, gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed said that his 'mafia acts' were things of the past and now he and his family were just being hounded.
“Hamari 'mafiagiri' toh pehle hi samapt ho gayi, ab toh ragada ja raha hai. (Our mafiagiri has already ended, now we are being hounded)," he said from the prison van when asked by reporters about his criminal activities.
The 62-year-old gangster alleged that there was a conspiracy to eliminate him. “I am safe only because of you,” he said, addressing the media. He was brought to Prayagraj after covering over 1,300-km distance. Reporters tried to speak to him at several places on the way.
“Hum aapke jariye government se kehna chahte hain, bilkul mitti me mil gaye hain ab hamari aurton aur bachhon ko pareshan na karein. (I want to tell the government through you (the media) that I am totally reduced to dust, but please don't trouble the women and children of my family now,” Ahmed told media persons between Jhansi and Prayagraj.
The 37-member police team ferrying Atiq reached the Naini Central Jail around 6 pm. He is likely to be produced before a court in Prayagraj on Thursday in the Umesh Pal murder case.
After Umesh Pal, a key witness in the 2005 murder of former BSP MLA Raju Pal in which Ahmed is an accused, was shot dead outside his residence in Prayagraj on February 24, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had said “mafiaaon ko mitti me mila denge (will reduce the mafia to dust)”.
Before reaching Prayagraj, Atiq denied that he was part of the conspiracy behind Umesh Pal's killing. “I have no contact with my wife Shaista Parveen. I have not talked to anyone from there (inside Sabarmati jail) as jammers were installed. I have been in jail for the past six years, how could I hatch any conspiracy from behind the bars?,” he asked while talking to media persons.
Meanwhile, a team of Prayagraj police was also taking Atiq Ahmed’s younger brother, Khalid Azim alias Ashraf, to Prayagraj from Bareilly in connection with the Umesh Pal murder case. The prison van carrying Ashraf reportedly went out of order near Rae Bareli toll plaza on the Lucknow-Prayagraj highway for around 10 minutes and policemen had to push it to get it moving again. Ashraf also told media persons that his family was being harassed by the police.
The UP Police had on March 26 also taken Atiq from the Sabarmati jail to Prayagraj 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. He 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.
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 Deoria jail in east UP.