‘Mitti Mein Mila Denge’ – said chief minister Yogi Adityanath promising tough action against Atiq Ahmed’s gang. It took 50 days of meticulous tracking and a constant search and chase, perhaps the biggest in recent history, by the Uttar Pradesh Police before it ended in an encounter in Jhansi with Atiq’s son Asad being shot down.
Sources told News18 that the search by multiple teams of the UP Special Task Force (STF) went to several states and even abroad, to Nepal, in the search of Asad. Soon after gunning down Umesh Pal in broad day-light on February 24 in Prayagraj, Asad had escaped and was not using mobile phones to avoid electronic surveillance making the job of the police even more tougher. However, the UP STF remained on the chase before spotting Asad and his key aide Ghulam on a motorcycle in Jhansi on Thursday and an encounter ensued.
The UP Police had earlier killed two other shooters in the Umesh Pal case.
“We were after him (Asad) from Day 1. We tracked him to Jhansi today — they had not fled the country. Earlier, we missed them but this time we have got them. Foreign-made weapons have been recovered from him. They were using secure means of information,” the head of the UP STF Amitabh Yash told News18.
Asad Ahmed was to remain in the background during the killing of Umesh Pal and remain inside the car when other shooters led by him carried out the killing on February 24. He had also left his mobile phone in his flat in Lucknow to avoid being detected. But seeing Umesh Pal flee to his house after being initially shot by the attackers, Asad emerged from the car and rushed behind him to shoot him, exposing himself to be captured in CCTV cameras. The UP STF immediately got on his trail with CM Yogi Adityanath giving clear orders to deal with Asad sternly.
Till Umesh Pal’s killing, a young Asad Ahmed did not have any criminal case lodged against him. But he became the ‘most wanted’ man in Uttar Pradesh after leading half-a-dozen shooters who killed Umesh Pal, and a reward of Rs 5 lakh was put on his head.
Asad is the third son of gangster-cum-politician Atiq Ahmed and is said to have taken the reins of his father’s dreaded gang last August after his two elder brothers had surrendered in court.
Sources in the UP Police told News18 that Asad used to operate from Lucknow, from where he had passed out from Class 12 from a top school but could not go abroad for further studies as his passport was not cleared due to his family’s criminal history. He was not on the police radar till he was captured in the CCTV.
The police suspect that Asad took instructions from Atiq and Ashraf from jail over calls to plan the murder of Umesh Pal with whom his family had a long-standing rivalry.
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