Supreme Court asks UP: Why was Atiq Ahmad paraded before media?

New Delhi, April 28

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The Supreme Court on Friday wondered why gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf were paraded before the media as it sought to know from the Uttar Pradesh Government how the killers got to know that the duo was being taken to a hospital in Prayagraj.

Ahmad (60) and Ashraf (49) — who were in handcuffs — were shot dead by three men posing as journalists when the two brothers were interacting with the media while being escorted by police personnel to a hospital in Prayagraj for a check-up on April 15 night. A Bench, led by Justice S Ravindra Bhat, asked the government to file a comprehensive affidavit on steps taken to probe the dramatic killing of Atiq and Ashraf in Prayagraj. The Bench — which also included Justice Dipankar Datta — directed the government to also submit a report on the April 13 encounter in which Ahmad’s son Asad was killed along with his associate in Jhansi by a special task force team of the state police.

Asking the government to inform it about the steps taken after the report of the judicial inquiry commission, headed by Justice BS Chauhan that probed the 2020 killing of Vikas Dubey in a police encounter, the Bench posted the matter for further hearing after three weeks.

“How did they know? We have seen it on TV. Why were they not taken to the ambulance right from the entry gate of the hospital? Why were they paraded?” the Bench asked senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing the UP Government.

Rohatgi said as per the Supreme Court’s judgement, any accused in police custody must be taken for a medical examination every two days and the assailants had been going there for three days.

Noting that the state was already probing the killings, Rohatgi said Atiq and his family had been involved in heinous crimes for the past 30 years and it’s probable that they were killed by their rivals.