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By Santosh Kumar Sharma: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday concluded its fresh raids against gangster-turned politician Atiq Ahmed, an accused in the Umesh Pal murder case, and his associates. The federal probe agency recovered certain documents pertaining to over 100 properties in the name of Atiq Ahmed’s close associates and firms and these assets are Ahmed’s ‘benami’ properties.
The probe agency, which conducted raids as part of an ongoing money laundering probe against Atiq Ahmed and his aides, seized documents of benami properties between 2012 and 2017 built by Atiq from Lucknow to Prayagraj.
The documents seized by the ED showed that properties registered in the name of Atiq Ahmed were bought at a cheap rate as compared to circle rate.
The documents of a house built across 5,900 square meters (SQ MT) worth Rs 47 lakh in Lucknow registered in the name of Atiq were found. The central agency also found documents which show that Atiq bought a plot in Gomtinagar for Rs 29 lakhs but the circle rate was Rs 47 lakhs.
The circle rate is the minimum price fixed by the state government and below which the property can not be sold.
GOLD, CASH SEIZED DURING RAIDS
The ED carried out raids at properties belonging to Atiq’s lawyer Khan Saulat Hanif, relative Khalid Zafar and other associates and seized cash worth Rs 84.68 lakh, gold bars worth Rs 60 lakh, gold and diamonds worth Rs 2.85 crore and 30 mobile phones.
ALSO READ | 160 criminal cases, illegal revenues worth crores: Report card of Atiq Ahmed’s family
The ED recovered documents related to several properties of Atiq Ahmed from Khan Saulat Hanif’s house.
The raids were also conducted at houses of Atiq Ahmed’s accountant Sitaram Shukla, Khalid Zafar, CA Asif Jafri, Shaheen Akhtar, Saulat Hanif Vakil and businessman Sanjeev Aggarwal.
The action comes at a time when the 60-year-old former Samajwadi Party MLA was brought to the Naini Central Jail in Prayagraj from the Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad for the second time in about a fortnight. He was produced in a court in connection with the Umesh Pal murder case.
ALSO READ | Alive because of you: Atiq Ahmed thanks media enroute UP’s Prayagraj from Sabarmati jail | Watch
Atiq Ahmed faces more than 100 police cases in UP. The ED case of money laundering against him and his family stems from these FIRs.
On March 28, Atiq Ahmed was convicted by an MP-MLA court and sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment in the abduction case of now-deceased Umesh Pal.
Atiq Ahmed and his family came under the scanner in the Umesh Pal murder case. Umesh Pal, a key witness to the murder of Bahujan Samaj Party leader Raju Pal and one of his two armed security escorts was shot dead in Prayagraj’s Sulem Saray area on February 24.
ALSO READ | Atiq Ahmed confessed to planning Umesh Pal’s murder, having links with ISI & LeT: Remand copy
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