Last month, Atiq Ahmed, one among India’s most dreaded gangster-politicians, was shot lifeless stay on TV alongside together with his brother. The grisly homicide marked the tip of his four-decade-long reign of terror in Prayagraj, a metropolis as soon as identified for its wealthy tradition. Soutik Biswas in New Delhi and Vikas Pandey in Prayagraj piece collectively Ahmed’s tumultuous life, by which the boundaries between crime and politics grew to become blurred.

On a foggy January morning in 2005, Raju Pal, a newly-minted lawmaker, was travelling within the northern Indian metropolis of Prayagraj (previously often called Allahabad) when two automobiles all of the sudden appeared out of nowhere, swerved dangerously and pulled up in entrance of his Toyota SUV.

More than half-a-dozen males jumped out and commenced firing into the automotive at Pal. After raining a number of rounds from their handguns, they walked away. Bystanders pulled out the crumpled, bleeding legislator and carried him to a different car to take him to the hospital.

Then the lads returned to assault their dying goal some extra.

Ravindra Pandey, a criminal offense reporter, was sipping espresso in a bustling cafeteria when he noticed a convoy of vehicles carrying the assailants race by, unleashing a barrage of bullets on the car ferrying the wounded politician to the hospital.

They have been in scorching pursuit till the car reached the hospital. In a ultimate act of ruthless brutality, the lads fired a few rounds into an inert Pal to verify he was lifeless. Doctors discovered 19 bullets in his physique. The lawmaker, who allegedly had shut hyperlinks with the underworld himself, had been married for simply 9 days.

“We saw the shooting. The entire city saw the shooting. This was the first such incident here. Everyone knew who was responsible for the attack,” recounts Mr Pandey.

At that point, Atiq Ahmed was already Prayagraj’s most feared gangster-turned-politician. A yr earlier than the killing, he had change into an MP after 5 consecutive phrases as a legislator from town in Uttar Pradesh state.

Pal was allegedly killed as a result of he had dared to problem Ahmed on his personal turf. Ahmed had bequeathed his Allahabad West seat within the state elections to his brother and fellow strongman, Ashraf, as a way to battle – and finally win – a parliamentary election from neighbouring Phulpur. However, Ashraf had suffered a shock defeat by 4,000 votes by the hands of Pal. The gangster and his males had reportedly taken revenge by getting Pal murdered, and have been named as the principle accused within the case.

Ahmed, a portly man sporting a handlebar moustache and his trademark white turban, exuded an aura of worry wherever he went, embodying the archetype of a gangster-politician.

For over 40 years, the son of a poor tanga-wallah (horse-drawn carriage driver) and a homemaker mom held sway over the felony underworld of a quiet metropolis located on the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna, two of India’s holiest rivers.

Prayagraj has been well-known for its poets, singers, artists, writers and legal professionals (India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan have been born right here). But its deceptively tranquil exterior hid a flamable mixture of crime and politics.

Nobody contributed to this infamy greater than Atiq Ahmed. At house, he was a doting father to 5 sons, saved pedigreed canine, threw lavish events and hosted mushairas (poetry recitals) for his pals, even that includes a revered Bollywood lyricist as soon as.

Outside, he reportedly seized properties and companies, extorted cash from businessmen, issued counterfeit cheques for purchases and acquired his rivals crushed up in jail. Many cops and politicians reportedly sided with him and helped him. Even the courts seemed to be cautious: in 2012, 10 excessive court docket judges recused themselves from a listening to on whether or not to grant him bail.

Unsurprisingly Ahmed had a protracted resume in police data. He was the chief of the so-called “Inter-State Gang 227” and had amassed practically 100 circumstances, together with murders and kidnappings. Numerous the time he had remained at massive and in plain sight.

The precise variety of Ahmed’s crimes are a lot increased as a result of “people feared him and didn’t report hundreds of cases”, says Lalji Shukla, a former high police officer in Prayagraj.

Yet, it was solely in March this yr that Ahmed was discovered responsible in a case of kidnapping and sentenced to life in jail – the primary time he was convicted. Mr Shukla attributes this delay to Ahmed realizing “how to manage the system”.

“He would frequently miss court dates and threaten witnesses. Even some witnesses who didn’t fear him would eventually get tired after many years of court dates,” he says.

But a number of days after the conviction, on the evening of 15 April, all of it resulted in a somewhat macabre method.

Ahmed and his brother have been gunned down point-blank on live TV exterior a hospital in Prayagraj within the presence of greater than a dozen armed policemen. The brothers have been talking with journalists on their approach to a routine medical examination.

The police arrested three males who, they stated, killed the brothers as a result of they wished to “make a name for themselves in the criminal world”. The murders shocked the nation and the state authorities swiftly ordered an investigation.

“No mafia can spread terror in Uttar Pradesh anymore,” Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Uttar Pradesh, stated days after the homicide. He did not point out Ahmed immediately.

Atiq Ahmed was born in a Muslim-dominated neighbourhood in Prayagraj in 1962.

Not a lot is understood about his youth other than the truth that he dropped out of highschool and acquired concerned in petty crimes.

By 1979, nevertheless, Ahmed appeared to have come of age. He was accused in a case of homicide, however the prices couldn’t be proved.

Over the subsequent decade, he burnished his credentials as a gangster, police say. He stole scrap steel from railway yards, secured authorities contracts after threatening rival contractors and usurped land and property belonging to others. He additionally joined a gang led by a gangster-turned-municipal corporator known as Shauq Ilahi, popularly often called Chand Baba.

By 1989, Ahmed was eyeing a profession in politics. The mentor and his follower fell out after they each stood towards one another in elections to the state meeting that yr. (IIahi requested Ahmed to face down; and the latter refused.)

Following the announcement of election outcomes, or maybe throughout the vote counting course of (there are conflicting reviews), a violent gang warfare broke out on the streets of town between the supporters of the now rival gangsters. In the melee, Ilahi, who was the first goal, was killed. With the elimination of his mentor and a convincing victory in his first election as an unbiased candidate, Ahmed was thrust into the limelight.

Over the subsequent three many years, Ahmed grew into Prayagraj’s most feared gangster. Mr Shukla remembers arresting him thrice, together with for homicide, however every time Ahmed acquired bail. “He had connections and supporters everywhere. Everyone feared him,” he says.

Thanks to those connections, Ahmed’s energy and affect as a gangster soared. He typically hung out in jail as an undertrial for his unlawful actions, but remained undaunted – he steadily summoned his rivals and businessmen to jail to extort cash, ordered their beatings, and even circulated movies of their mistreatment as proof of his continued dominance.

In 2018, a businessman named Mohit Jaiswal made a police criticism alleging that he had been kidnapped from Lucknow and brought to the Deoria jail, the place Ahmed was being held. Jaiswal advised journalists that he was brutally crushed by the gangster, his henchmen, and even the jail workers.

Police officers in Prayagraj discuss Ahmed forcibly “capturing” a movie theatre, a lodge, a workshop and a restaurant within the metropolis. “In the internecine gang wars, he ended up harassing Hindus and Muslims alike. In fact, many of his victims belonged to the Muslim community,” Mr Shukla says.

Rajkumar Ojha, an area resident, tells the story of how Ahmed waded right into a land dispute involving his brothers, provided to mediate and ended up forcibly getting the household plot registered in his spouse’s title at a throwaway worth. “When I met him later, he taunted me saying that I had not been able to handle my brothers properly and therefore met this fate,” says Mr Ojha.

Zeeshan Ali, one among Ahmed’s family, vividly remembers a terrifying incident that occurred in his house two years in the past. A gaggle of armed males forcefully entered his home, demanding that he signal over a plot of land within the gangster’s title. Mr Ali obtained a name from Ahmed himself, ordering him to conform.

According to Mr Ali, Ahmed introduced him with two choices: both give up the land’s possession or pay him a big sum of cash, equal to a 3rd of the land’s worth, in money. “I remained silent. Then Ahmed ordered his men to kill me. They began hitting me but I managed to escape,” Mr Ali says.

Ahmed’s affect prolonged past Prayagraj. In one incident, he led an armed gang to try to seize an empty plot of land owned by a businessman in an upscale neighbourhood within the state capital of Lucknow, some 200km away.

“They just arrived in the morning, took out their guns and said they owned the land,” says a senior police official, who wished to stay unnamed. “We stopped them from claiming the land forcibly”.

Days later, Ahmed and his males reportedly barged right into a lodge owned by the businessman, and instructed the supervisor to change off the CCTV cameras. He then allegedly listed the names of over a dozen highly effective folks within the metropolis and stated to the supervisor, “Do whatever you want. Take my photo and give it to these people if you like.”

Sushil Gurnani, the businessman, later advised information networks: “They came into our hotel and said: ‘This land was yours until yesterday. From tomorrow it is ours.'”

“They said go and tell the chief minister and police if you want.”

In July 2008, Atiq Ahmed together with 5 different jailed Indian MPs – who collectively confronted greater than 100 circumstances of kidnapping, homicide, extortion and extra – have been furloughed by the federal government so they may forged their ballots in a no-confidence vote that it was dealing with over a controversial civilian nuclear deal with the US.

Pictures present a beaming Ahmed in a safari swimsuit getting into the parliament. The ruling Congress party-led UPA authorities narrowly survived the vote, and the six furloughed MPs then returned to jail.

“Judging by the lengthy list of criminal cases in which he stood accused, Ahmed was equally proficient in running a criminal enterprise as he was conducting constituency service,” wrote Milan Vaishnav in his ebook When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics.

Mr Vaishnav, a political scientist, offered a vivid vignette of Ahmed’s life as a politician.

“Locals marvelled at this weekly durbar, where Ahmed, one ear pressed to his mobile phone and other taking in requests for constituency service, would mutter orders to his personal assistant or stenographer”.

“The party headquarters in which Ahmed would hold forth often bore close resemblance to an armoury than an administrative office, the walls impressively lined with imported automatic weaponry,” Mr Vaishnav wrote.

Gangsters like Ahmed joined political events, or shaped their very own, primarily for defense. They normally received in seats the place social divisions pushed by caste or faith have been sharp and the federal government was seen to be failing to hold out its capabilities – delivering companies, dishing out justice, or offering safety – in an neutral method.

Like most gangster-politicians Ahmed had led a tangled life. From 1989 to 2002, he received the identical seat in Prayagraj for 5 consecutive phrases. He started as an unbiased candidate and later grew to become a frontrunner of the influential regional Samajwadi Party. Finally, he joined Apna Dal, a rump get together shaped by a lower-caste chief.

Ahmed had probably the most success throughout the rule of the Samajwadi Party and was identified to have an in depth relationship with its chief, Mulayam Singh Yadav, who died final yr. It was the Samajwadi Party that gave him a ticket to contest from Phulpur, a prestigious seat that had beforehand despatched Jawaharlal Nehru to parliament thrice.

As a frontrunner of the Samajwadi Party, Ahmed didn’t hesitate to make use of violent ways. He was allegedly concerned within the notorious 1995 “guest house attack” on Mayawati, the Dalit chief of the regional Bahujan Samaj Party, who was then operating a fraying coalition authorities with the rival Samajwadi Party. Ahmed was allegedly a part of a bunch which stormed right into a visitor home the place Mayawati was holding a gathering – to debate whether or not to drag out of the federal government – and assaulted her.

When Mayawati returned to energy in Uttar Pradesh between 2002 and 2003, Ahmed felt weak for the primary time. Many of his properties, together with a sprawling workplace the place he met his folks, have been razed to the bottom and he was jailed. But his fortunes modified once more when the Samajwadi Party (SP) received elections in 2003.

He was now a seasoned politician.

In public conferences, Ahmed labored the crowds and spoke like an astute politician. He spoke about equality, secularism, social justice and training of ladies. “Education is the biggest love you can give to your children,” he advised a cheering crowd a few years in the past.

When reporters quizzed him on his felony document, Ahmed would remind them {that a} court docket had quashed a document 123 circumstances towards him in a single day. “Has it happened anywhere else in the world – the fact that I face so many fake cases?” he requested a reporter.

He typically took on the the Hindu nationalist BJP. He as soon as stated folks filed circumstances towards him as a result of he was preventing for Hindu-Muslim amity. He claimed he was all in favour of capturing energy to “improve the lives of people”.

Ahmed introduced himself as a sacrificial determine in politics, claiming he had little private life as a result of he was working for the folks. “He gave money to the poor to settle their medical bills, send their children to school. He helped Hindus and Muslims alike. But there was nothing charitable about it. It was all about cultivating an image like other gangster-politicians do,” says Anupam Mishra, editor of The Leader, a distinguished Prayagraj newspaper.

A politically profitable man like him would at all times appeal to enemies and go to jail, Ahmed stated as soon as. He in contrast himself with Nelson Mandela, saying that even the revered statesman “was in jail for 27 years”.

“Mandela was once a most wanted man. Then he became his country’s most respected ruler.”

He consolidated his political energy between 2003 and 2007. But simply earlier than the Samajwadi Party’s rule ended and contemporary elections have been known as in 2007, a horrific case additional triggered his downfall and appeared to make him fall out of favour with the Muslims in his constituency – two younger ladies have been kidnapped from a madrassa and gangraped.

This had brought about immense outrage throughout the group, and many individuals pointed fingers at Ahmed and his males, though the gangster’s title was not talked about within the police criticism. “Ever since this incident, Ahmed lost the goodwill of his community who were his biggest voting bloc,” says Mr Ali.

Two years later, Ahmed misplaced his seat in parliament. He by no means received an election after that.

But he continued to contest polls, was out and in of jail and nonetheless held sway on the planet of crime.

In 2017, Mr Adityanath’s BJP authorities got here to energy. Since then, Ahmed spent most of his time in jail.

On a balmy February night this yr, Umesh Pal was shot lifeless exterior his house by gunmen suspected to be a part of Ahmed’s gang.

CCTV footage confirmed Umesh, a lawyer and key witness within the 2005 killing of Raju Pal, speaking on his telephone and stepping out of a white Hyundai SUV close to his house.

Even as his armed safety guard steps out of the entrance seat, a younger man brandishing a revolver shoots at Pal. The 48-year-old lawyer staggers right into a lane, and some different males emerge, capturing at him. A bomb detonates, shrouding the busy avenue in an envelope of smoke, and other people run helter-skelter.

Ahmed’s household – his spouse, son and brother – have been charged with murdering Umesh. Since Ahmed and his brother have been already in jail in reference to different circumstances, the implication was that they’d ordered the daylight hit. (The trial of Raju Pal’s homicide was nonetheless grinding on within the courts).

Ahmed had been spending time in a jail in Gujarat state since 2019 after India’s high court docket ordered that he shouldn’t be saved in Uttar Pradesh to cease him from operating his gang from contained in the jail.

By then, he appeared to have fallen out of favour together with his political patrons. Days earlier than his homicide, his son Asad, a regulation pupil, was killed by the police. Asad was allegedly seen in CCTV footage capturing at Umesh Pal and he was named as an accused within the homicide.

Police declared that they seized and demolished the gangster’s properties – homes, workplaces, companies – price practically 10,000 million rupees ($122m; £97m).

The cycle of violence and retribution that Ahmed unleashed had continued lengthy after he went to jail. A key witness had been eradicated in broad daylight in February. Three months later, Ahmed himself met a grisly destiny.

Did somebody order his killing? Nobody fairly is aware of. An epilogue – or two – on Prayagraj’s seething underworld is probably nonetheless ready to be written.

Additional reporting by Ankit Srinivas in Prayagraj

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