Encounter of UP gangster's son takes communal turn

Akhilesh said that the family of Asad Ahmed should approach the courts if they feel that he was killed in a fake encounter

The killing of gangster turned politician Atiq Ahemd's son Asad Ahemd in an alleged encounter with the Uttar Pradesh police in Jhansi district, about 300 kilometres from here, on Thursday, took a communal turn with Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav saying that the UP government ''resorted to encounters on the basis of caste and religion''.

''The basis of encounters in this government is caste and religion.....if someone belongs to the caste of chief minister Yogi Adityanath then he will be hit with flowers,'' Akhilesh said in a sarcastic vein on Saturday.

The SP president said that the present CM of UP had 'withdrawn' cases against himself. ''Just imagine who would have topped the list of mafias from Gorakhpur (Adityanath's home town),'' he added, apparently referring to the UP government's decision to withdraw cases against Adityanath after BJP came to power in the state after the 2017 assembly polls.

Read | Atiq Ahmed's son Asad buried in Prayagraj amid watertight security

Akhilesh said that the family of Asad Ahmed should approach the courts if it felt that he was killed in a fake encounter.

The SP president had questioned Asad's encounter and said that the BJP government wanted to ''divert the people's attention from real issues by fake encounters''. BSP supremo Mayawati had also demanded a high-level probe into the encounter.

Akhilesh's wife and Lok Sabha MP Dimple Yadav had also said that the rule of law did not exist in UP.

Asad, who was wanted in connection with the killing of Umesh Pal, a key witness in the murder of the then BSP MLA Raju Pal in 2005, was killed along with an accomplice of his in an armed encounter with the UP cops in Jhansi.

As many as 180 alleged criminals have so far been killed in armed encounters with the police in the state since Yogi Adityanath took charge in 2017. According to police sources, around ten thousand encounters had taken place between the police and the 'criminals' in the state in the past six years during which 180 ''dreaded criminals'' had been killed while 12 cops had also been martyred. Around five thousand 'criminals' sustained injuries during the encounters in the past six years.