LUCKNOW, India (AP) — A former Indian lawmaker convicted of kidnapping and dealing with homicide and assault costs was shot useless 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 have been below police escort on their technique 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 taking pictures, with no less than one in every of them chanting “Jai Shri Ram,” or “Hail Lord Ram,” a slogan that has grow to be a battle cry for Hindu nationalists of their marketing campaign in opposition to Muslims.

Uttar Pradesh is ruled by India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party since 2017. Since then, over 180 folks dealing with felony costs in India’s most populous state have been killed in so-called “police encounters” that rights teams say are sometimes extrajudicial killings.

Following Saturday’s taking pictures, authorities imposed a ban on the meeting of greater than 4 folks throughout the state and in addition lower web entry on cell phones in Prayagraj metropolis. The authorities additionally ordered a judicial probe headed by a retired decide.

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 taking pictures 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 exhibits somebody pulling a gun near Atiq Ahmad’s head. As he collapses, his brother can be shot. The video exhibits 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 in opposition to 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 have been blamed for Pal’s demise, have been killed by police in what was described as a shootout.

Two weeks earlier, Atiq Ahmad had petitioned the Indian Supreme Court for defense, saying there was an “open, direct and immediate threat to his life” from state functionaries of Uttar Pradesh, in line with media reviews. But the courtroom declined to intervene and as an alternative requested his lawyer to method the native state courtroom.

Atiq Ahmad was a state lawmaker 4 instances 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 felony instances and was among the many first politicians from Uttar Pradesh to be prosecuted below 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 pressured seize of properties and different crimes.

Opposition events criticized the killings as a safety lapse and accused the federal government of ruling by worry.