Second encounter with murder in UP days after witnessing a 2005 fatal shooting

New Delhi:

Uttar Pradesh State Police said today that a man allegedly involved in the killing of a witness in the BSP MLA murder case last month was shot dead in an encounter.

According to the police, Usman was one of the six shooters who shot Umesh Pal, a key witness in the 2005 killing of Bahujan Samaj MP Raju Pal on 24 February. Two policemen who were on a security mission for Umesh Pal later succumbed to their injuries.

Shocking images of the killing caught on a CCTV camera have gone viral, raising questions about the state of law and order in the state.

Faced with tough questions from the opposition over the daylight crime, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said the government would crush those involved in the crime.

Referring to the PM’s remark, Shalabh Mani Tripathi, BJP and former PM advisor, tweeted in Hindi this morning, “We said we will crush them. The man who fired the first bullet at Umesh Pal was killed in an encounter.”

Dr. Badri Vishal Singh, medical officer at Prayagraj Hospital, said Usman was brought in dead. He added, “We conducted an examination, and after that he was declared dead, and the body was sent to the morgue. He was shot.”

Umesh Pal was a key witness in the killing of Raju Pal, a BSP legislator who was killed months after he won the Allahabad (West) assembly seat by defeating former Samajwadi MP Ateeq Ahmed, younger brother of Khalid Azim.

Ateeq Ahmed and his brother and former Ashraf Tahrir Jamaat are accused in the case of Raju Pal’s murder and are currently in prison.

Responding to the opposition amid the uproar over the killing of Umesh Pal, Chief Minister Adityanath said that Atiq Ahmed was an MP for Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party and said his government would not allow a “mafia raj” in the state.

Today’s encounter was the first against the shooters involved in the killing of Umesh Pal. Police said the driver of the car used in the killing was shot dead in an earlier encounter.

For the other five shooters, the state police earlier announced a reward of Rs 50,000. They have now raised it to Rs 2.5 lakh.