Former Indian MP and brother shot dead on live TV
Watch: Moments before Atiq Ahmad was shot on live TV (Video contains distressing sound) (Credit: AP)
A former Indian MP convicted of kidnapping and facing murder charges was shot dead with his brother in an attack caught on live TV.
Police were escorting Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf to a medical checkup on Saturday night when three men posing as journalists targeted the brothers from close range in Prayagraj city, in Uttar Pradesh state.
The men quickly surrendered to police after the shooting, with at least chanting “Jai Shri Ram” or “Hail Lord Ram” - a slogan that has become a battle cry for Hindu nationalists in their campaign against Muslims.
Uttar Pradesh is governed by India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party.
Police officer Ramit Sharma said the three assailants came on motorcycles posing as journalists.
“They managed to reach close to Atiq and his brother on the pretext of recording a byte and fired at them from close range. Both sustained bullet injuries on the head,” he said. “It all happened in seconds.”
Multiple videos of Saturday’s shooting were shared on social media and it was initially broadcast live on local TV channels as the brothers spoke to media while being taken to hospital. The footage shows someone pulling a gun close to Atiq Ahmad’s head and, as he collapses, his brother is also shot.
The video shows assailants repeatedly firing at the two men after both fell on the ground.
Atiq Ahmad, 60, was jailed in 2019 after he was convicted of kidnapping a lawyer, Umesh Pal, who had testified against him as as a witness in the killing of a lawmaker in 2005.
In February, Mr Pal was also killed.
On Thursday, Atiq Ahmad’s teenage son and another man, both of whom were blamed for Mr Pal’s death, were killed by police in what was described as a shootout.
Two weeks earlier, Atiq Ahmad had petitioned the Indian Supreme Court for protection, saying there was an “open, direct and immediate threat to his life” from state functionaries of Uttar Pradesh, according to reports.
But the court declined to intervene and instead asked his lawyer to approach the local state court. Atiq Ahmad was a state lawmaker four times and was also elected to India’s Parliament in 2004 from Uttar Pradesh’s Phulpur constituency, once represented by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. He faced more than 100 criminal cases and was among the first politicians from Uttar Pradesh to be prosecuted under the stringent Gangster Act in the late 1980s.
He also cultivated a Robin Hood image among mostly Muslim constituents and used to financially help many poor families.
But he was also criticised for leveraging his political clout to develop a syndicate that was an active player in the real estate market amid allegations of forced capture of properties and other crimes. Opposition parties criticised the killings as a security lapse.
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