Asad & Ghulam fired with intent to kill, says FIR

Lucknow, April 14 (IANS) The FIR lodged soon after the encounter with Asad Ahmad, son of gangster Atiq Ahmad, and shooter Ghulam in Jhansi, says that the police tried to catch the two accused alive.

The encounter took place on Thursday.

The FIR says, "Just as we instructed our car driver to overtake the motorcycles the two accused were trying to flee in, and loudly asked them to stop, they accelerated and tried to take a turn at a side road to escape, though another team had already surrounded them."

The two were repeatedly warned but they did not stop and their motorcycles slipped and fell near a babool tree.

"Asad and Ghulam took cover, started abusing the police and fired with the intent to kill," it added.

The police said they stopped their vehicle, took cover, and walked into their firing range to try to capture the two alive 'without caring for their safety'.

They had to shoot back as the accused started firing indiscriminately, the police said, adding that the firing from the other side stopped after a while when they inched closer and found Asad and Ghulam injured.

"They still showed signs of life, so we immediately sent them to a hospital in two separate ambulances, but later found out that they had died," the FIR said.

Pistols, bullet shells, live bullets, motorcycles, and other evidence were collected from the spot, the report stated.

The police said that they were told by an informant on April 13, that Asad and Ghulam were in Jhansi, after which they started laying a dragnet.

Asad and Ghulam were spotted approaching on two unnumbered Bajaj Discovery motorcycles from Chirgaon town in Jhansi, after which the police chased them for 1.5 km.

Asad's body will be received by his maternal family and will be taken to a family graveyard at Kasari Masari in Prayagraj for burial in the afternoon or early evening.

Atiq Ahmed and his family came under the scanner as CCTV footage showed that Umesh Pal was murdered by indiscriminate firing and a bomb blast in Prayagraj on February 24.

Asad, 19, was seen chasing Umesh Pal with a gun in hand in the footage.

Asad, who has no criminal record, was not named in the FIR lodged immediately after the killing of Umesh Pal. His name surfaced during the investigation, the police said.

Both Asad and Ghulam had a reward of Rs 5 lakh on their heads.

Umesh Pal, the key witness in the 2005 BSP MLA Raju Pal murder case, and his police security guards Raghavendra Singh and Sandeep Nishad, were also shot dead outside his home in Dhoomanganj on February 24.

With Thursday's encounter, four people linked to Umesh Pal's murder have so far been gunned down. Police are still looking for Guddu Muslim, who allegedly lobbed a bomb during the shooting, and another alleged shooter, Sabir.

The FIR said Guddu Muslim had also gone to Jhansi immediately after Umesh Pal's murder and stayed at the house of one Satish Pandey.

According to police sources, Asad Ahmad had fled to Lucknow after the killing of Umesh Pal. He later moved to Kanpur and then Meerut before reaching Delhi, it is learnt. He then decided to flee to Madhya Pradesh. He reached Jhansi and was on his way to the state border on a bike when police intercepted him. Asad was reportedly in disguise.