[ad_1]
Atiq Ahmed, a former member of India’s Parliament, was in handcuffs, beneath police escort to a routine medical checkup when his attackers opened hearth. He’s serving a life sentence after a conviction last month for the 2006 kidnapping of the lawyer Umesh Pal — a witness in a separate homicide case. He was reportedly going through hundreds of different fees, together with for alleged homicide and assault, although he had no different convictions. His brother additionally confronted prison fees.
The Ahmeds, members of India’s Muslim minority, have been killed amid a huddle of reporters asking questions. Police moved swiftly to restrain the obvious assailants, together with at the least one who was chanting “Jai Shri Ram,” or “Hail Lord Ram” — a non secular phrase that has turn into a Hindu nationalist slogan, generally heard in crowds finishing up assaults on Muslims. A police official instructed the Guardian that three suspects have been carrying digicam tools, a microphone with a community emblem and pretend press badges.
Three suspects surrendered not lengthy after the taking pictures.
Atiq Ahmed’s son Asad Ahmed had been killed days earlier in a police encounter in Uttar Pradesh. Atiq Ahmed’s ultimate phrases have been a response to a reporter who requested why he wasn’t on the funeral: “They didn’t take us, so we didn’t go.”
Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, has developed a infamous status for gangland violence in addition to an extended historical past of extrajudicial vigilante violence carried out by native authorities. Below the rule of Yogi Adityanath, the state’s right-wing Hindu nationalist chief minister, Uttar Pradesh has seen a surge in such encounters with police.
Whereas his supporters cheered on the chief minister’s supposed robust strategy to regulation and order, his opponents accused him of stoking religious tensions and making a local weather of impunity.
Sanjay Prasad, Adityanath’s principal secretary, didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the killings.
Politicians and rights advocates referred to as the slayings an indication of deep underlying issues.
Kapil Sibal, a member of Parliament, said on Twitter that there had been “two murders”: “1) Atiq Ahmed and brother Ashraf 2) Rule of regulation.”
Asaduddin Owaisi, the top of AIMIM, an Indian Muslim political celebration, referred to as for a Supreme Courtroom investigation and the removal from service of the law enforcement officials on the scene.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee tweeted that she was “shocked by the brazen anarchy and complete collapse of regulation & order in Uttar Pradesh.”
“It’s shameful that perpetrators are actually taking the regulation in their very own fingers, unfazed by the police and media presence,” she stated.
[ad_2]
