Asad Ahmad, aide killed in retaliatory firing: FIR

LUCKNOW: The Special Task Force (STF) of the Uttar Pradesh Police tried to capture gangsterpolitician Atiq Ahmad’s son Asad Ahmad and his accomplice Ghulam alive, but they were killed in “retaliatory firing” in the state’s Jhansi district on Thursday, the First Information Report (FIR) filed by STF deputy superintendent of police, Navendu Kumar, said on Friday.

The details of the FIR come against the backdrop of a political controversy over the encounter, which happened at the same time Atiq and his brother Khalid Azeem, alias Ashraf, were being produced in a Prayagraj court.

Police said the encounter occurred at 12.45pm on Thursday when two teams intercepted Asad (19) and Hasan (40) on the Kanpur-Jhansi highway. Both were absconding after being named in the murder of Umesh Pal, a lawyer who was a key witness in a sensational 2005 murder and who was gunned down along with two police guards outside his home in Prayagraj on February 24.

The encounter on Thursday was carried out by a 12-member STF team led by DSPs Navendu Kumar and Vimal Kumar Singh.

The FIR, filed at Badagaon police station of Jhansi, said that the team received a specific input on Wednesday that Asad and Ghulam were hiding near Jhansi. The duo were sighted on a motorcycle 100 metres away from the Parichha dam bend around 11.30 am, and the police asked them to stop their motorcycle and surrender, the police added. However, they sped up their vehicle and entered a rough, narrow lane.

When Vimal Kumar’s team cornered them, Asad and Ghulam fell on the ground and began firing with foreign-make weapons and the STF retaliated, the FIR said, adding that intermittent firing from both sides lasted 30 minutes and that 49 rounds were fired.

“The members of both the (STF) teams, who surrounded them, tried to reach within their firing range without caring for their lives and tried to catch them alive, but had to return fire in selfdefence in view of the indiscriminate firing from the miscreants.”

According to the FIR, Navendu fired two shots and Vimal shot one.

Around 12.52pm, after confirming the two accused were alive, the police team called the hospital and ambulance services and shifted them to a nearby hospital.

When the team reached the hospital, they came to know that both of them have died, it added.

Dr Narendra Sengar, one of the three doctors who conducted the post-mortem examination, said that the two were dead for nearly 90 minutes when they were brought to the hospital.