UP police take mafia-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed to Prayagraj from Gujarat's Sabarmati jail for court appearance

Ahmedabad: A police team from Uttar Pradesh came to the Sabarmati central jail in Ahmedabad on Sunday and took gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed to Prayagraj, where he will be produced before a court on March 28 when it passes an order in a kidnapping case in which he is an accused, officials said.

The UP police team reached the Sabarmati jail in the morning and left the premises amid tight security with Ahmed in a police van around 6 pm after completing the necessary formalities, they said.

Ahmed, a former Samajwadi Party MP, has been lodged in the Sabarmati central jail since June 2019. He was shifted there from his home state as per the Supreme Court's order.

"A court in Prayagraj has set March 28 as the date to pass its order in a kidnapping case in which Ahmed is an accused," Prayagraj Police Commissioner Ramit Sharma said in the Uttar Pradesh city.

He said a team of the Prayagraj police was sent to Ahmedabad to bring Ahmed for his court appearance the given date.

"As part of the procedure, all the accused are to be produced before the court on the date of the judgment and then sent back to their respective jails," the police officer said.

The Supreme Court had in April 2019 directed that the former MP from Phulpur in UP be shifted to a high-security jail in Gujarat after he was accused of orchestrating the kidnapping and assault of a real estate businessman Mohit Jaiswal while in jail.

He is named in more than 100 criminal cases, including the recent Umesh Pal murder case, police said.

Among the most sensational murders in which Ahmed is allegedly involved was that of Raju Pal, the MLA from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) who was shot dead in 2005. Umesh Pal, a key witness in this murder case, was gunned down outside his residence in Prayagraj on February 24 this year, they said.

Earlier this month, Ahmed had moved the Supreme Court for protection, claiming that he and his family were falsely implicated in the Umesh Pal murder case in Prayagraj and he may be killed in a fake encounter by the Uttar Pradesh Police.

In his plea, Ahmed said the Uttar Pradesh police were in all likelihood seeking his transit remand and police remand to take him from Ahmedabad to Prayagraj and he "genuinely apprehends that he may be eliminated during this transit period".