They want to kill me: Atiq Ahmad on being taken to Prayagraj again

Gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad has once again claimed threat to his life as he is being taken from Sabarmati Central Jail in Gujarat's Ahmedabad city on Tuesday to Prayagraj in connection with a criminal case against him.

''It is not right. They want to kill me,'' said Ahmad while being taken in a UP Police van. The Prayagraj court has issued a B warrant in the matter.

The Uttar Pradesh Police had on March 26 also taken Ahmad to Prayagraj in UP to produce him in a court.

On March 28, the court there had sentenced him to life imprisonment in the 2006 Umesh Pal kidnapping case.

The 60-year-old former Uttar Pradesh MLA and Lok Sabha member 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.

A jail official on Monday said, ''A team of the Uttar Pradesh police is at the Sabarmati Central Jail to take Atiq Ahmad to UP in connection with a criminal case. He will be taken there after submission of all the documents (required for his custody).'' Ahmad is likely to be taken to Prayagraj for interrogation in the Umesh Pal murder case, he said. The Supreme Court had in April 2019 directed Ahmad be shifted to the 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. He has been lodged in the jail here since June 2019.

Ahmad 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 Ahmad was 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 that murder case, was gunned down outside his residence in Prayagraj on February 24 this year. Ahmad 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 UP Police.

In his plea, Ahmad said the UP Police were in all likelihood seeking his transit remand and police remand to take him from Ahmedabad to Prayagraj and he ''genuinely apprehends that he may be eliminated during this transit period''.