Atiq, bro sent to 14-day judicial custody

PRAYAGRAJ: The Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Prayagraj on Thursday sent gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf to 14-day judicial custody and also allowed a five-day police remand to both of them in connection with the Umesh Pal murder case.
The police remand will begin from April 13 and will continue till April 17. The judicial custody (stay in jail) will continue till April 26.
On Thursday, both were produced before the CJM, Prayagraj, Dinesh Gautam at 11:10 am amid heavy security and remained in the court for over two hours, as the arguments proceeded from both sides.
Atiq Ahmad and Khalid Azim alias Ashraf will be kept in Naini jail here till April 26.
In its application seeking 14 days police custody, the station house officer of Dhoomanganj police station, Rajesh Kumar Maurya, who is investigation officer of Umesh Pal murder case, said in order to obtain the necessary information regarding the weapons used and obtained, their police custody remand was necessary.
He said that Atiq and Ashraf, on being brought here to Prayagraj jail, had confessed that they obtained sophisticated weapons from a person, who used to procure them from the Pakistan border at Punjab, dropped by drone.
They said they could not disclose the exact location and the person concerned but if they were taken to that place, they could identify the place and the arms supplier, added the IO in his application.
According to district government counsel (criminal), Gulab Chandra Agrahri, after arguments on the application for their police custody were complete, the court allowed five-day police remand to both of them, which will remain effective till 5pm on April 17.
The CJM court’s verdict came on a day when the Uttar Pradesh Police announced they had killed Ahmad’s son Asad and one of his aides in an encounter in Jhansi. Both Asad and his aide were wanted in the Umesh Pal murder case.
Umesh Pal, a key witness in the 2005 killing of BSP MLA Raju Pal, and his two police security guards were shot dead outside his home in Prayagraj’s Dhoomanganj area on February 24.
Atiq Ahmad, his wife Shaista Parveen, brother Ashraf, their two sons and others were accused in the Umesh Pal murder case, which is based on a complaint by Jaya Pal, the latter’s wife .
Both Atiq and Ashraf are also accused in the Raju Pal murder case.
For the court hearing on Thursday, Ahmad, the 60-year-old former Samajwadi Party MP, was brought from Sabarmati Jail in Gujarat and Ashraf, former MLA was brought here from Bareilly jail.
This was the second time within a month that Ahmad was brought from the Gujarat jail to Prayagraj by road for a court hearing.
On March 28, an MP-MLA court held Ahmad and two others guilty in connection with the kidnapping of Umesh Pal in 2006 and sentenced them to rigorous imprisonment for life.
The FIR in the Umesh Pal murder case was lodged under IPC sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting armed with deadly weapons), 149 (unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) and 506 (criminal intimidation) and 120B (conspiracy).