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By Srishti Ojha: A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Supreme Court by a retired IPS officer seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the murder of gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf.
Earlier, a PIL was filed by advocate Vishal Tiwari alleging oppressive police brutalities in Uttar Pradesh and seeking the constitution of an expert committee headed by a former Supreme Court judge.
In his petition, former IPS officer Amitabh Thakur sought directions to the Uttar Pradesh government to transfer to the CBI the FIR registered against the three shooters who killed Atiq and Ashraf.
On April 15, Atiq and Ashraf were shot dead in police custody in Prayagraj. The brother duo, accused in the Umesh Pal murder case, was on their way to a medical investigation and talking to mediapersons when the shooting happened. The entire incident was captured live on camera.
Three assailants — Sunny, Lavlesh Tiwari and Arun Maurya — posed as journalists and used Zigana pistols to eliminate Atiq and Ashraf in the presence of police. They were sent to 14-day judicial custody.
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The plea stated that there could be tampering of evidence and a possibility of the three assailants getting killed in judicial custody.
The petitioner said there was an immediate need to act in the case, as time is of immense value and the matter needs immediate and urgent attention.
The retired IPS officer submitted that there are many facts and figures that make the murder extremely unique and distinct and make it a matter of larger public interest, which has many important ramifications for public life, governance and the entire edifice of law and justice.
Asserting that the PIL is not ordinary, the petitioner said that time and again, it came on social media that Atiq Ahmed, Mukhtar Ansari and certain other selective gangsters were praying again and again for their lives.
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‘EVERYTHING RELATED TO ATIQ’S KILLING SUSPICIOUS’
The plea stated that everything that seems to be related with Atiq’s murder seems extremely sketchy, fishy and suspicious.
It said that it is also quite obvious that there can be a great possibility of the entire murder scheme being a state-sponsored exercise, where the high and mighty might be involved, for all kinds of nefarious purposes.
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The plea said that the mention of certain names by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and the way he and his government went after a selected few mafia/gangsters made it clear that there were a few people who were the real targets of the state government under the current dispensation.
“Thus, everything happened primarily only with men like Atiq Ahmed and Mukhtar Ansari, whether it was police action or revenue action or action by any other government department,” the plea said.
The petition claimed that the Chief Minister initiated a new regime of ‘encounter raj’, where he openly vouched for and called for the use of force in taming criminals and gangsters. This led to thousands of encounters taking place all over Uttar Pradesh, which sprang up suddenly in a big way after his government came to power.
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“The Chief Minister, his ministers and the officials of the state government repeatedly went on releasing data on the number of encounters and the numbers of criminals killed/arrested in this process. It was never officially admitted that these actions were based on any selective or target-based considerations, but it was known to one and all, among the public as also among the officials, that the action had to be extremely targeted and selective, where the prime targets were to be Mukhtar Ansari and Atiq Ahmed and in the process,” the plea stated.
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