Why Atiq's killing stands out even by 'UP standards'

In Mani Ratnam’s much-admired film Nayakan, don Velu Naicker, who lorded over Mumbai, is killed by a ‘nobody’ in full public view. At 10.35pm on April 15, real life echoed reel life in Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj. Ringed by cops, gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf were killed by three young men, who were almost ‘non-entities’ in UP’s crime world.The brothers join a long line of UP dons who met violent ends. As they say in UP and Bihar, “gangsters’ run ends on a post-mortem table”. The UP exception is Harishankar Tiwari, the strongman from Gorakhpur who is now well past 80.But that Atiq and his brother were killed while surrounded by a posse of cops and on live TV cameras is extraordinary, even by ‘UP standards’. Questions abound about the way UP police failed to protect a ‘prized catch’, who was under their custody on the order of a court.Chief minister Yogi Adityanath has so far electorally benefitted from what many voters see as his ‘robust’ enforcement of law and order. But the Atiq-Ashraf killings will put the free hand given to the police under aggressive scrutiny. medium99538959Cops will have to answer if the men in custody were allowed to interact with reporters in a way that made them easy targets. Did the police lower the guard after Asad, Atiq’s son, was killed in an encounter? Or did cops choose to be lax because they were angry about Atiq’s son killing two of their own — Sandeep Nishad and Raghvendra Singh — when he murdered lawyer Umesh Pal two months ago?There are questions about the assailants as well. We know they were petty criminals. But what was the motive? That they shouted “Jai Shri Ram” is a matter worth probing. Did they kill to get famous? Or were they patsies for others? Were the masterminds those apprehensive of what Atiq may spill to cops and/or the National Investigation Agency?We don’t know whether we will know finally how cops allowed the two dons to get killed and why they got killed. But we know for sure now how the bloody career of this ganglord is an indictment of our criminal justice and policing systems.Atiq had 100-odd first information reports (FIRs) lodged against him over the past four decades. And several criminal acts were never reported. Key witnesses against him regularly turned hostile. A few who didn’t comply like Umesh Pal were murdered. Had Atiq and Ashraf been convicted for the first murder they were accused of, UP may have been spared another mafia don.Atiq controlled local police, even seeing off ‘difficult’ officers like Lalji Shukla, former superintendent of police of Prayagraj, then Allahabad. Atiq arranged for bombs to be thrown at him — he was, of course, unharmed — to point fingers at Shukla. medium99538962He started as a ‘tongawala’, established himself as a criminal by allegedly killing a ‘notorious’ corporator, Chand Baba, in late 1990s. He became a member of legislative assembly (MLA). And when Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP’s) Raju Pal defeated Atiq’s brother Ashraf in the Assembly seat vacated by Atiq in 2004, Pal was chased and killed on the streets of Sangam City.Rankly ineffective policing helped Atiq. He grabbed prime properties through threats and violence, once even getting a property owner kidnapped while Atiq was himself in jail.And many big UP politicians were happy to accommodate them. Mayawati, who once won a historic mandate promising to quell lawlessness, recently fielded Atiq’s wife, Shaista Parveen, who is on the run, as a mayoral candidate. She stuck to her choice even after the killing of Umesh Pal, till growing outrage forced her hand.The Byzantine ways of UP politics is also illustrated by the entry of Puja Pal, Raju Pal’s widow. She is now a Samajwadi Party (SP) MLA. Atiq was an SP MP when he was accused of getting Raju, a BSP politician, killed. At the beginning of his criminal career, Atiq had got support from Congress leaders.Atiq came handy for politicians who believe in taking short-cuts for wooing Muslims so that they are spared the hard work required for winning the community’s trust.Atiq never hid his criminality. But that never came in the way of his earning legitimacy among the political class. He diversified beyond SP-BSP to join Apna Dal. After winning the Phulpur seat in 2004 — incidentally, once the constituency of Jawaharlal Nehru, he openly said that he contested elections only to ‘normalise’ his public image.But Atiq dead will still impact politics. UP urban local body polls are round the corner. And it’s a sure bet that the don will be a campaign issue, for all sides.