Police and media encompass the world the place Gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf had been shot in entrance of the Motilal Nehru medical school in, Prayagraj, India, Saturday, April 15, 2023.

Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP

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Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP

Police and media encompass the world the place Gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf had been shot in entrance of the Motilal Nehru medical school in, Prayagraj, India, Saturday, April 15, 2023.

Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP

LUCKNOW, India — A former Indian lawmaker convicted of kidnapping and dealing with homicide and assault prices was shot lifeless alongside together with his brother in a dramatic assault that was caught reside on TV in northern India, officers mentioned Sunday.

Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf had been beneath police escort on their method to a medical checkup at a hospital on Saturday evening when three males posing as journalists focused the 2 brothers from shut vary in Prayagraj metropolis in Uttar Pradesh state.

The males shortly surrendered to the police after the capturing, with not less than one in every of them chanting “Jai Shri Ram,” or “Hail Lord Ram,” a slogan that has turn out to be a battle cry for Hindu nationalists of their marketing campaign towards Muslims.

Uttar Pradesh is ruled by India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party.

Police officer Ramit Sharma mentioned the three assailants got here on bikes posing as journalists.

“They managed to reach close to Atiq and his brother on the pretext of recording a byte and fired at them from close range. Both sustained bullet injuries on the head,” he mentioned. “It all happened in seconds.”

Multiple movies of Saturday’s capturing went viral on social media. It was initially broadcast reside on native TV channels because the brothers spoke to media whereas being taken to the hospital.

The footage reveals somebody pulling a gun near Atiq Ahmad’s head. As he collapses, his brother can be shot. The video reveals assailants repeatedly firing on the two males after each fell on the bottom.

Atiq Ahmad, 60, was jailed in 2019 after he was convicted of kidnapping a lawyer, Umesh Pal, who had testified towards him as as a witness within the killing of a lawmaker in 2005. In February, Pal was additionally killed.

On Thursday, Atiq Ahmad’s teenage son and one other man, each of whom had been blamed for Pal’s demise, had been killed by police in what was described as a shootout.

Two weeks earlier, Atiq Ahmad had petitioned the Indian Supreme Court for cover, saying there was an “open, direct and immediate threat to his life” from state functionaries of Uttar Pradesh, in response to media stories. But the courtroom declined to intervene and as a substitute requested his lawyer to strategy the native state courtroom.

Atiq Ahmad was a state lawmaker 4 occasions and was additionally elected to India’s Parliament in 2004 from Uttar Pradesh’s Phulpur constituency, as soon as represented by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

He confronted greater than 100 prison instances and was among the many first politicians from Uttar Pradesh to be prosecuted beneath the stringent Gangster Act within the late Nineteen Eighties. He additionally cultivated a Robin Hood picture amongst largely Muslim constituents and used to financially assist many poor households.

But he was additionally criticized for leveraging his political clout to develop a syndicate that was an lively participant in the true property market amid allegations of compelled seize of properties and different crimes.

Opposition events criticized the killings as a safety lapse.