Prayagraj (UP): The Uttar Pradesh police on Monday declared slain gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad's wife Shaista Parveen an absconder. The Dhumanganj police have also declared a reward of Rs 50,000 on Parveen who has been on the run since Umesh Pal's murder.
SHO (Dhumanganj) Rajesh Maurya said Praveen was declared an absconder by pasting a notice on the walls of the house in Chakia where she lived. The house is registered in the name of Zafar Ahmed, the brother-in-law of Ahmed's lawyer Khan Shaulat Hanif.
Necessary formalities were carried out before the notice was pasted on her house, the SHO said, adding that Praveen and her son lived in the house after Ahmad's ancestral house was demolished. The Prayagraj Development Authority (PDA) had also demolished this house after Pal's murder and the notice was pasted on the walls remaining there.
SHO Maurya said even after being declared a fugitive, if Parveen does not surrender, then attachment action will be carried out against her. Umesh Pal, the main witness in the 2005 murder of BSP MLA Raju Pal, and his two security guards were shot dead on February 24. A case was registered on February 25 against Ahmad, his brother Ashraf, Parveen, two sons, aides Guddu Muslim and Ghulam, and nine others.
On March 28, an MP/MLA court held Ahmad and two others guilty in the 2006 Umesh Pal kidnapping case and sentenced them to life imprisonment. That was Ahmad's first conviction even though more than 100 cases had been registered against him. The 60-year-old former Samajwadi Party MP was brought from Sabarmati Jail in Gujarat by road for a hearing in the case in Prayagraj.
On April 15, Ahmad and Ashraf were shot dead at point-blank range by three men posing as journalists in the middle of a media interaction while police personnel were escorting them to a medical college for a checkup. (PTI)
