I'm being harassed in Sabarmati Jail, says Atiq Ahmed

Gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed on Wednesday claimed he was being harassed in the Sabarmati Central Jail in Gujarat. He also claimed that his family was ruined, but he was safe because of the media.

A police team from Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday left with gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed from the high security Sabarmati Central Jail in Gujarat's Ahmedabad city for Prayagraj by road in connection with Umesh Pal murder case. The team stopped at Survaya police station in Madhya Pradesh's Shivpuri district on Wednesday for about 20 minutes, where mediapersons asked questions to Ahmed at around 7 am.

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“My family is ruined. I am safe because of you,” the 60-year-old former Uttar Pradesh MLA and Lok Sabha member told reporters. "I am safe because of you people. I have not telephoned anyone from there (inside the jail) as jammers were installed there. I have not hatched any conspiracy and am behind bars for the last six years," he said.

When reporters asked him that government has said he will be decimated, Ahmed claimed, “They have already decimated me. I am also being harassed in the Sabarmati jail.”

Earlier, when Ahmed was taken to Prayagraj from the same route on March 26 and that time also the convoy stopped in Shivpuri district. When mediapersons had posed a question to him if he feared for his life, he said, “Kahe ka darr.” (what fear).

On Wednesday, the police convoy taking Ahmed to Prayagraj entered the Uttar Pradesh border from Jhansi at around 8.45 am.

Umesh Pal and his two police security guards were shot dead outside his home in Prayagraj's Dhoomanganj area on February 24 this year. Based on a complaint lodged by Umesh Pal's wife Jaya Pal, a case was registered on February 25 against Ahmed, his brother Ashraf, wife Shaista Parveen, two sons, aides Guddu Muslim and Ghulam, and nine others.

The Uttar Pradesh Police had on March 26 also taken Ahmed from the Sabarmati jail to Prayagraj to produce him in a court.

On March 28, the court there had sentenced Ahmed and two others to life imprisonment in the 2006 Umesh Pal kidnapping case. Ahmed was brought back to the high-security jail in Gujarat in a UP police van on March 29, after a nearly 24-hour-long road journey from Prayagraj.

In 2006, Atiq Ahmed and his aides abducted Umesh Pal and forced him to give a statement in court in their favour. Umesh Pal had registered a complaint in this regard.

The Supreme Court had in April 2019 directed that Ahmed be shifted to a high-security jail in Gujarat after he was accused of orchestrating the kidnapping and assault of a real estate businessman Mohit Jaiswal while in jail. Ahmed has been named in more than 100 criminal cases, including the recent Umesh Pal murder case, police said. Among the most sensational murders in which Ahmed is allegedly involved was that of Raju Pal, the MLA from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) who was shot dead in 2005.

Umesh Pal, a key witness in this murder case, was gunned down outside his residence in Prayagraj on February 24 this year.

Ahmed last month moved the Supreme Court for protection, claiming he and his family have been falsely implicated as accused in the Umesh Pal murder case in Prayagraj and he may be killed in a fake encounter by the Uttar Pradesh Police.