The mother of Ghulam – who was gunned down by Uttar Pradesh Police’s Special Task Force on Thursday with Asad Ahmad, the son of gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad – has declared the state government’s action to be ‘absolutely correct’.
“All gangsters and criminals will take a lesson from this. I had no idea that he (her son) used to work for gangster Atiq Ahmad. I will not receive his body… maybe his wife will receive it,” she was quoted by news agency ANI.
Ghulam Hasan – a resident of Prayagraj’s Mehndauri area – was the brother of ex-BJP minority cell district president Rahil Hasan. He was with gangster Asad Ahmad – both had a ₹5 lakh reward on their heads – when the two were shot dead in an encounter in UP’s Jhansi. Their killing sparked praise for UP cops from chief minister Yogi Adityanath, his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya and other BJP leaders, and criticism from opposition leaders like AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi and the Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav, who feared the extra-legal nature of the shooting.
Asad Ahmad and Ghulam’s killing was also praised by the mother of Umesh Pal – the lawyer who was an eyewitness to the murder of Bahujan Samaj Party lawmaker Raju Pal and whose murder in Prayagraj has been credited to Atiq and Asad Ahmad, among others.Pal’s mother thanked Yogi Adityanath and called the killings a ‘tribute’ to her son’s death.
Asad Ahmad and Ghulam were hunted down by UP cops in a special operation codenamed ‘Jhansi’ that was launched after a tip that the two were on the move. According to the police, the two opened fire after being cornered and were shot dead in the subsequent exchange of bullets.
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“They (Asad and Ghulam) were travelling across several states after the Umesh Pal murder. We received a tip-off and zeroed in on them in Jhansi. They fired on the police team after which the STF team shot them down,” Anant Dev Tiwari, the task force’s DIG, said.
