New Delhi: On March 1, Prayagraj administration in Uttar Pradesh demolished a house which was reported as having belonged to an aide of Samajwadi Party MP and jailed don Atiq Ahmed.
Ahmed’s name is variously spelled as ‘Atiq’, ‘Ateeq’ and ‘Atique.’
Today, March 2, Atiq Ahmed’s lawyer said that the house in fact belonged to a reporter of the news agency ANI, and had only been rented out to Ahmed’s wife, Shaista Parveen, who was living there with her children.
#WATCH | Umesh Pal murder case: Bulldozer demolishes properties of accused, in Prayagraj, who are also close aides of gangster Atiq Ahmed. pic.twitter.com/wQG6ff6WwK
— ANI UP/Uttarakhand (@ANINewsUP) March 1, 2023
Journalist Zakir Ali Tyagi has tweeted the lawyer Khan Saulat Hanif’s video clip, in which the latter claims that the house belongs to the Banda reporter of ANI, Zafar Ahmed Khan. ANI had been one of the news outlets to identify the house as belonging to Ahmed’s aide.
“I want to make something clear that the house is not Atiq Ahmed’s, this house belongs to ANI’s Banda reporter Zafar Ahmed Khan. He purchased this house on January 7, 2021. At around the same time, Atiq Ahmed’s house had been demolished, and his wife had been living with her children at her mother’s. She took the house on rent and has been living there since then. The electricity connection is in Shaista Parveen’s name but the house itself is Zafar Ahmed Khan’s,” the lawyer said.
He also said that the administration’s claim that the house was illegal were untrue and that the demolition itself was illegal. “Zafar Ahmed Khan did not get any notice from administration, he learned it from the news that his house was being demolished,” he said.
आज इलाहाबाद प्रशासन ने जिस मकान को अतीक अहमद का समझ बुलडोजर से ध्वस्त कर दिया है वह ANI के बांदा रिपोर्टर ज़फर अहमद का है, अतीक़ अहमद की पत्नी इस मकान में 2021 से किराये पर रहती थी,PDA की इस कार्रवाई के बाद उठे सवालों पर प्रशासन ने प्रेस विज्ञप्ति जारी कर जांच की बात की है! कमाल pic.twitter.com/nUK9Y778pV
— Zakir Ali Tyagi (@ZakirAliTyagi) March 1, 2023
After questions were raised about whose house was demolished, the administration issued a press release saying it would look into the matter. “In the Prayagraj commisionerate, during the probe into the murder of Mr Umesh Pal and the proceedings against mafia Atiq Ahmed and his associates, it has come to light that the demolished house 297/205 F belongs to Zafar Ahmed Khan S/o Mohd. Habib Khan r/o 64 U. Era Convent School is situated in Gularnaka, Kotwali Nagar, District Banda,” the release reads.
“Zafar Ahmed Khan is a reporter with ANI in the district Banda, whose house located in Prayagraj has been demolished by the Prayagraj Development Authority. The district police is verifying and authenticating these claims. Whatever facts will come to light during the investigation will be made available,” it continues.
The Uttar Pradesh administration’s bulldozer-happy reaction to crime has been variously criticised as a course of action that goes against the rule of law and disproportionately targets Muslims. The Adityanath administration has earlier demolished Muslim-owned houses in a manner which has led to questions on due process.
The Uttar Pradesh government last year razed the house of activist Afreen Fatima after police named her father Javed Mohammad was the “mastermind” in the protests that took place in the wake of controversy following now-suspended BJP leader Nupur Sharma’s remarks on the Prophet. Although the house was called illegal, the notice had arrived in Mohammad’s name, even though it was owned by Mohammad’s wife.
Atiq Ahmed’s arrest and subsequent events have been politically charged. Ahmed was a five-time MLA and one-time MP from Phulpur, elected on Samajwadi Party tickets. However, the party under Akhilesh Yadav appears keen to establish some distance from Ahmed’s legacy of crime.
On February 24, Umesh Pal, a key witness in the 2005 murder of Bahujan Samaj Party MLA Raju Pal – with which Ahmed and his family are allegedly connected – was shot dead. Atiq Ahmed and his brother and former MLA Ashraf Ahmed, who are both in jail, have been named accused in Umesh Pal’s death too.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath responded to the event in the assembly by saying that the SP has fostered such crime and that he will “drag them to the ground.”
Ahmed has also moved Supreme Court expressing fear that the Uttar Pradesh Police’s transit remand – Ahmed is in jail in Gujarat now in a case related to a 2016 assault on teachers of an agricultural research institute in Prayagraj – could mean that he might be killed in an encounter.