Obituary reference of Atiq among 13 read in Parliament

New Delhi: The name of gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed, who was shot dead in April, was on the list of obituary references for MPs and former members in Lok Sabha at the start of the monsoon session on Thursday.

Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla read out the obituaries of two sitting MPs - Balubhau alias Suresh Narayan Dhanorkar and Rattan Lal Kataria - and 11 former MPs. They were Parkash Singh Badal, Sujan Singh Bundela, Ranjit Singh, Sandipan Thorat, Viswanatham Kanithi, Atiq Ahmed, Trilochan Kanungo, Ilyas Azmi, Anadi Charan Das, Nihal Singh and Raj Karan Singh.

On Atiq Ahmed, Birla said that he was a member of the 14th Lok Sabha from the Phulpur constituency in Uttar Pradesh. “He was a member of a committee linked to the Railways. He was also a member of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly. He died at the age of 60 in Prayagraj on April 15, 2023.”

After reading out all the obituaries, Birla expressed grief over the deaths and extended the condolences of the House to the families. All the members present in the Lok Sabha then stood up and observed a few moments of silence.

Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf were being taken for a medical check-up on April 15 when they were shot dead by three men posing as journalists. The killers, who had fake identification cards and a camera, told the police they wanted to eliminate Atiq Ahmed and become famous in the underworld.

Atiq and Ashraf were murdered days after Atiq’s nephew, Asad Ahmed, was killed in an encounter with the police. Atiq had moved the Supreme Court for protection, claiming that he and his family had been falsely implicated in the murder of advocate Umesh Pal and he may be killed in a fake encounter by the Uttar Pradesh Police.

The gangster-turned-politician had more than 90 criminal cases - including murder, kidnapping and extortion - against him. He was also accused of assaulting a professor at Allahabad University in 2018.