New Delhi: The Special Task Force (STF) team of the Uttar Pradesh police that shot dead former MP Atiq Ahmad’s son Mohammad Asad Khan and another person in an alleged “encounter” last year in Jhansi have been awarded the Police Medal for Gallantry, to be received by them on Independence Day.
This comes weeks after a two-member judicial commission upheld the claim of the state police that the four men linked to Atiq they shot dead last year were killed in genuine “encounter” shootings. This includes the killing of Asad and his associate Mohammad Ghulam by the UP STF on April 13, 2023 in Jhansi.
As reported by The Wire earlier this month, the police claimed they had shot them dead in self-defence.
According to the police, Asad was the prime accused in the murder of Krishna Kumar Pal alias Umesh Pal, as CCTV footage had shown him firing indiscriminately at him.
Umesh Pal was the key witness in the murder case of Bahujan Samaj Party MLA Raju Pal.
Atiq and his brother Ashraf were accused of orchestrating Raju Pal’s murder as well as planning the murder of Umesh Pal.
Two days after the UP STF shot dead Asad and Ghulam in Jhansi, three mysterious assailants shot dead Atiq and Ashraf on live television in a separate incident in the presence of police and media persons while they were being escorted to a hospital for a medical check-up days after being brought to Prayagraj for investigation in their alleged role in the Umesh Pal murder.
The UP police on Wednesday (August 14) said that deputy superintendents of police Vimal Kumar Singh and Navendu Kumar, inspectors Gyanendra Kumar Rai and Anil Kumar Singh, and head constables Sushil Kumar and Sunil Kumar were awarded the Police Gallantry Medal for their “extraordinary” and brave act in shooting dead Asad and Ghulam in an alleged “encounter”.
By the time they were shot dead, Asad and Ghulam carried rewards of Rs 5 lakh each on their heads.
A total of 17 police personnel from UP will receive the Police Gallantry Medal on August 15. These policemen are being rewarded in shooting dead suspects in four alleged encounters, including the one in Jhansi in 2023 as well as the shooting down in July 2020 of Praveen Dubey alias Bauwa, an aide of the slain history-sheeter from Kanpur, Vikas Dubey.
The 17 police personnel were identified by the UP police headquarters for their “extraordinary” action and recommended to the Union government for gallantry awards.
The UP police in a statement said that it had developed a “zero tolerance policy” against crime and criminals in recent years and had ensured exemplary action.
According to the FIR registered in the killings of Asad and Ghulam, the police claimed that it had received inputs that the two men, absconding after the murder of Umesh Pal, were spotted in Jhansi.
Following this, STF teams from Prayagraj reached Jhansi and launched a search operation. Informants allegedly told the police that Asad and Ghulam were travelling on a black and red motorcycle without a number plate and moving from Chirgaon to Pariccha Dam.
Around 100 metres ahead of the turn to Parichha Dam, the STF claimed they spotted Asad and Ghulam moving on a motorcycle. The police alleged that upon being asked to stop, Asad and Ghulam tried to flee on their bike and turned it towards a kutcha road. But after some distance, the bike skidded on the kutcha path and fell in babool bushes, police claimed.
Police alleged that the two men fired at them and that police fired back in self-defence. Asad and Ghulam were shot and taken to a hospital in an injured state but were declared dead, said police.
A judicial commission was constituted to probe the three “encounters” that took place after the daylight murder of Umesh Pal and his two police guards in Prayagraj in February 2023. The genuineness of the “encounters” was widely questioned.
Rajiv Lochan Mehrotra, a retired judge of the Allahabad high court, and Vijay Kumar Gupta, a former UP director general of police, were part of the probe panel as chairman and member, respectively.
The commission submitted its report to the state government, which tabled it in the Assembly on August 1.
The panel concluded that it found “no malice, personal interest, conspiracy or fault” on part of the policemen in the three separate “encounter” incidents, including the one in which Asad and Ghulam were killed.
The judicial commission said that it found the three “encounters” that took place in February, March and April last year, to be “real and beyond doubt”.
In the February 24, 2023 attack in Prayagraj, Umesh Pal and constables Sandeep Nishad and Raghavendra Singh were shot at and also had bombs hurled at them. The incident pushed the Yogi Adityanath government on the backfoot as it raised questions on his management of law and order.
Atiq, his brother Ashraf, Atiq’s wife Sahista Parveen, Atiq’s aide Guddu ‘Muslim’ and Atiq’s sons and other associates were named in the FIR related to Umesh Pal’s murder.
The first “encounter” following Umesh Pal’s murder took place just three days after the incident, on February 27, 2023. Police shot dead an accused, Arbaaz, in the Nehru Park area in Dhumanganj, Prayagraj.
The second “encounter” took place on March 6, 2023 when another accused in the Umesh Pal case, Vijay Kumar Chaudhary alias Usman, was killed by police in Kaundhiyara area of Prayagraj.
The probe commission, however, said the “veracity” of the three “encounter” incidents was proved by the medical examination, post mortem reports of the deceased and evidence from examinations conducted by scientists at the Forensic Science Laboratory.
The forensic experts submitted that the injuries suffered by the deceased were from “bullets fired from distance” and that the weapons recovered from them and those carried by the police party in the incident were used for firing.
The commission also took note of reports submitted by doctors who said that the injuries suffered by the four men were “shot from the front” and that the “injuries” sustained by policemen were also caused by firearms.
“In their reports and evidence, the doctors did not find the injuries suffered by the policemen to be self-inflicted,” noted the commission.
Atiq and Ashraf were also accused of killing MLA Raju Pal due to political rivalry after Pal defeated Ashraf in a by-poll soon after Atiq vacated the Allahabad West assembly seat upon winning the Lok Sabha election from Phulpur in 2004.
Atiq and Ashraf were accused of intimidating Umesh Pal into retracting his statement in the Raju Pal murder case that took place in 2005. When Umesh Pal refused to do so, the muscleman politician allegedly got him kidnapped at gunpoint – on March 28, 2023, two weeks before Atiq and Ashraf were gunned down, Atiq and two others were convicted in this case that ran from 2007.
Umesh Pal was murdered while he was returning from court, four days before the verdict was pronounced. The armed guards who were shot dead along with Umesh Pal had been provided to him following his alleged kidnapping.
Atiq was elected as an MLA five times in a row from 1989, thrice as an independent, from the Allahabad West seat, before he went on to become an MP from Phulpur, a constituency that was once among the most prestigious and that gave India’s its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
Earlier this year, when Samajwadi Party MLA Pooja Pal, Raju Pal’s widow, stunned everyone when she voted for the BJP in the Rajya Sabha election, she said she did so to a gesture of gratitude towards Adityanath for addressing her “agony and pain” and that of her community.
