On 16th March 2023, the Special Task Force of the Uttar Pradesh police arrested one Qayyum Ansari from Kapilvastu in Nepal who helped Asad Ahmed to escape to Nepal. Asad Ahmed is the son of gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed’s son and is a prime accused in the Umesh Pal murder case. The Special Task Force (STF) received inputs that Umesh Pal’s shooters have reached Nepal. Following these inputs, Qayyum Ansari was arrested.
Qayyum Ansari, a close aide of Atiq Ahmed, was arrested by the STF late in the evening on Thursday, March 16, from Kapilavastu in Nepal on charges of crossing the Nepal border with Asad, Muslim Guddu, Sabir, and Arman. He is accused of giving the assailants shelter in Nepal and giving them a car. He is being interrogated by the STF. In the interrogation, STF has got many important clues.
According to reports, Qayyum Ansari had escorted the shooters from Siddharthnagar to the Nepal border. After his arrest, the STF took him to Bardpur in Siddharthnagar district, where he was questioned. After this, he has been shifted elsewhere.
Qayyum Ansari is a resident of Mauaima in Prayagraj. He is a businessman in Nepal. He has a petrol pump named Ansari Diesels at Chandrauta in the Kapilvastu district of Nepal. A team of 4 STF officers caught Qayyum Ansari.
According to the police, Qayyum Ansari has underworld connections and had earlier been questioned by the STF in connection with other cases.
Prayagraj police are looking for five shooters involved in this case. They are Asad Ahmed – son of Atiq Ahmed, Guddu Muslim – the bomber seen in the initial CCTV footage of the murder, and three shooters Arman, Ghulam, and Sabir. UP Police and STF deployed a total of 22 teams to trace and catch these five miscreants.
So far, STF has conducted raids in Nepal and Thailand to nab the shooters. STF teams have raided 500 places in 13 states including West Bengal, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Punjab, and Maharashtra. 3 dedicated teams are working for each shooter. Three teams have been deployed for call details and surveillance, while four teams are engaged in linking the link of important information found during interrogation and search. In the latest information, the location of these shooters was found to be in Nepal, after which the police have arrested Qayyum Ansari who allegedly helped the killers of Umesh Pal escape to Nepal.
Meanwhile, Prayagraj police (Crime Branch) are interrogating the SIM seller caught from the Nawabganj area. The Crime Branch nabbed him from Kaudihar town where his mobile shop is located. Before the incident, Asad, son of Atiq Ahmed, had purchased 16 new mobile phones and an equal number of SIM cards which were distributed among the shooters. Atiq’s wife Shaista Parveen had also given Rs 1 lakh each to all the criminals for expenses.
In the latest video of the murder incident that surfaced, injured Umesh Pal can be seen fighting a shooter. Reportedly, the man is Asad, the son of Atiq Ahmed. Umesh Pal ran toward his house through a narrow lane even after being shot. At the corner of the lane, a shooter is seen in this video clip.
The shooter attempted to get hold of Umesh Pal as he wanted to shoot Pal in his head. Umesh Pal resisted and escaped the clutches of the assailant and ran away. The attacker then shot bullets into other parts of Umesh Pal’s body. Police personnel is also seen running toward the home.
The face of the attacker is not clearly seen in this video but it is seen that he is wearing black clothes. From the earlier CCTV footage of the incident, it is clear that the attacker is Asad Ahmed. Police are also checking for more CCTV footage in the area.
Umesh Pal and his two police security guards Raghvendra Singh and Sandeep Nishad were shot dead outside his home in Prayagraj’s Dhoomanganj on February 24.
Reportedly, the person seen with a pistol in his hand is Asad Ahmed, the son of mafia-politician and former MP Atiq Ahmed, identified as the master conspirator of the murder of Umesh Pal. The Prayagraj police are taking forward the investigation on the basis of this new video.
Atiq Ahmed is currently locked in Sabarmati jail in Ahmedabad for orchestrating the kidnapping and assault of a real estate businessman, Mohit Jaiswal, from the Deoria jail. Atiq is also the prime accused in the 2005 murder of BSP MLA Raju Pal, who was shot dead in Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj. Notably, Umesh Pal was the prime witness in this case.
