SP Leader Atiq Ahmed Booked For Assaulting College Staff

Allahabad: Mafia don-turned-politician and SP candidate for the 2017 Uttar Pradesh polls, Atiq Ahmed, has been booked for allegedly assaulting the staff of an educational institute on the outskirts of the city, police said on Thursday.

As per the complaint, Ahmed along with scores of his supporters, barged inside the premises of Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences (SHIATS) yesterday and assaulted its staff members who had opposed the unlawful entry, they said.

"A case has been registered against Ahmed and four of his supporters under IPC sections pertaining to rioting, unlawful assembly, dacoity and criminal intimidation, at Naini police station in the district's trans-Yamuna region on the basis of the complaint by Public Relations Officer of the institute," Senior Superintendent of Police, Allahabad, Shalabh Mathur said.

Fifty other unnamed persons have also been named in the FIR, the SSP said.

According to SHIATS PRO Ramakant Dubey, Ahmed and his supporters barged into the premises of the institute saying they wanted to meet Vice Chancellor R B Lal.

The security official on duty told them that Lal was not in his chamber and requested them to come later after getting an appointment, Dubey alleged.

This enraged Ahmed and he and his supporters began beating up the security official. They also thrashed other staff members who tried to intervene, the PRO said.

Ahmed, who was named as the ruling Samajwadi Party's candidate from Kanpur Cantt seat last week, denied the allegation.

The SP leader claimed that he had gone to the institute "to meet the Vice-chancellor with a request to reconsider the expulsion of students--Mohd Saif and Shaqip, who were recently rusticated for allegedly misbehaving with a faculty member".

Meanwhile, CCTV footage of the alleged assault by the SP leader and his supporters was shared with the police and media.

Named in dozens of criminal cases, Ahmed hogged limelight when his name cropped up in the murder of young BSP MLA Raju Pal, who was gunned down in broad daylight in one of the city's most crowded localities on January 25, 2005.

The murder case was handed over to CBI following a Supreme Court order passed in January this year.