2023-04-16 23:30:30
A mobster turned politician and his brother were assassinated in India on Saturday night, while being followed by a cloud of television reporters. The latter’s cameras broadcast live how three gunmen, who until then had pretended to be journalists, shot former deputies Atiq and Ashraf Ahmed at point blank range, who died instantly.
Both were handcuffed and escorted by the police, on their way to a medical examination, due to the transfer from prison, at ten o’clock at night, in the town of Prayagraj, in northern India. Both Ahmed brothers had been deputies for said constituency, the first in the Lower House and the second in the state assembly of Uttar Pradesh, for the Samajwadi Party (Socialist Party).
The Ahmeds were imprisoned until a few days ago in Gujarat and were transferred to Uttar Pradesh to be tried for one of their more than 100 open cases. Specifically, the one that links them to the murder of a rival politician who snatched a seat that the Ahmed family occupied, as well as the subsequent murder of one of the witnesses to said crime. Atiq Ahmed had said that he feared for his life if he was transferred to his state, which he tried to prevent in vain by appealing to the Supreme Court.
235 million inhabitants
Uttar Pradesh bans gatherings of more than four people to prevent riots
On Saturday, the mobster had even more reason to be uneasy, as one of his 19-year-old sons had died two days earlier in Uttar Pradesh in an extrajudicial execution, disguised as a shootout with law enforcement.
To this we must add that last month, a former deputy of the ruling BJP in said state had explicitly called for “eliminating Atiq Ahmed in a shootout when he gets out of jail”, assuring that the policeman who did so “would have the doors of the paradise”. He had been preceded by the head of government of Uttar Pradesh himself, from the same Hindu chauvinist party, the yogi Adityanath, who had promised in the chamber to “pulverize the mafia”, in an allusion to Ahmed and his collusion with the previous party in command of the state. .
Police and photographers surround the place where the two gangsters were murdered on Saturday night, at the entrance to a hospital in Prayagraj, India.
The circumstance occurs that the young gunmen, who offered no resistance when arrested, shouted the profession of Hindu faith “Jai Shri Ram”, while they shot the victims, who moved with difficulty when handcuffed with only one handcuff. . Something that provides a disturbing religious bias to the crime, even though the killers have allegedly declared that they just wanted to “be famous.” One of them carried a television camera and another with a microphone with a television logo, before opening fire, according to witnesses.
The Ahmed brothers have already been buried in their nearby hometown, under strong police force. The authorities have introduced restrictions on the internet and telephony to limit “the spread of rumours” and have made a plea in favor of “maintaining law and order.” An excellent idea in a state where in the last six years there have been at least 180 extrajudicial executions. Uttar Pradesh has also banned street gatherings of more than four individuals to prevent protests and riots.
The corpses of the gangsters were carried on the shoulders of relatives and neighbors this Sunday at the funeral in their town, under intense police surveillance in anticipation of riots.
The murder of Atiq Ahmed, his brother and his son leaves the Ahmed clan severely depleted, facing hundreds of extortion and murder charges. The state authorities say they have confiscated properties illegally acquired by said family for a value equivalent to one thousand three hundred million euros.
Uttar Pradesh, would be the fifth most populous state in the world if it were independent, with 235 million inhabitants. It is also one of the most backward in India. In any case, the mobilization of votes also requires enormous amounts of money there, which leads almost all parties to offer candidacies to the highest bidder.
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