All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi claimed Friday the three men who killed gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf – the two were shot dead last week while in custody of Uttar Pradesh Police – are ‘followers’ of Nathuram Godse, the man who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. He also called the three ‘terrorists’ and said they were part of a ‘terror module’, although he did not specify the group to which they belonged.
Owaisi – who has been fiercely critical of UP’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and chief minister Yogi Adityanath on this topic – also demanded to know why the state hadn’t invoked the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, a stringent anti-terror law routinely used in terror cases.
“Why didn’t they invoke UAPA on those who killed them (Atiq Ahmad and Ashraf)? Who gave automatic weapons to the killers? Who gave ₹8 lakhs worth of weapons to them? They are radicalised and walking in the footsteps of Godse,” Owaisi was quoted by news agency ANI.
“They must be stopped else they will kill more people.”
The reference to ‘ ₹8 lakhs worth of weapons’ was to information released by the police – that the three who shot and killed Atiq and Ashraf had weapons imported from Turkey.
This is not the first time Owaisi has ripped into the BJP and Yogi Adityanath; in an earlier attack he accused the UP government of practicing ‘rule of the gun’ to rule the state and criticised those who seemed to celebrate the killings; those who did included the UP chief minister and his deputy, who called the deaths ‘historic’ and a ‘message to criminals’.
Owaisi, meanwhile, has also underlined his resolve to visit UP in the future – a reference to the attack on his convoy in February.
Atiq Ahmad and his brother – in police custody over the killing of lawyer Umesh Pal earlier this year – were being walked to a ‘routine medical check-up’ late Saturday night – accompanied by armed cops – when they were accosted by a crowd of reporters.
Their killers were in that crowd – posing as journalists – and shot them dead at close range.
The killers have been identified as Arun Maurya, Lavlesh Tiwari and Sunny, and have since been transferred to a different jail for ‘administrative’ reasons.
The killing of Atiq and Ashraf is now being probed by two teams – one set up by the police and a judicial commission set up by the state government.
