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New Delhi. It was in 2017 when Atiq Ahmed reached Lucknow with cars and armed men to get his ticket confirmed from the Samajwadi Party (SP) from the Kanpur Cantonment seat in the Uttar Pradesh elections. Mulayam Singh Yadav had then announced the ticket, but his son and the then Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav was uneasy about confirming the ticket and asked Ahmed to back down. Then Atiq Ahmed had said, “Okay, I am withdrawing my name, they are citing 100 criminal cases against me, but they forget that I am a free man and I bring Muslim votes… their Is going to have a wrong message. SP will lose this election in Uttar Pradesh…”
Now as of March 28, 2023, almost six years later, Ahmed has finally been convicted for the first time by the court. That too, almost 43 years after the first criminal case was registered against him, he has been punished for the first time. Nearly 60 of the 100 cases against Ahmed for murder, attempt to murder and kidnapping for ransom are under trial, but many have seen key witnesses turning hostile or not appearing in court. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh will project this conviction as the Yogi Adityanath government did what could not be done in Uttar Pradesh in 43 years and the Chief Minister brought down the impregnable fortress of the mafia of Atiq Ahmed.
A senior BJP functionary in the state said the conviction sets a precedent as during the SP’s rule in the state prior to 2017, Ahmed used to roam freely in the state making a mockery of the law and running his mafia gang from Allahabad without fear. Used to run He said that ‘this gave the common man the feeling that the law does its job. People saw fear on Atiq’s face for the first time. This fear was of the government and the law. Once upon a time, he was ruling in Atiq’s area and there was no access of police and law.
