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Congress suspends party member who demanded Bharat Ratna for gangster Atiq Ahmad
“Party has taken immediate action after his (Rajkumar Singh) comment by suspending him for 6 yrs from the party,” Prayagraj Congress President said.
A local Congress leader in Uttar Pradesh has been suspended from the primary membership of the party for calling slain gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad a ‘martyr’ and demanding Bharat Ratna, the country's highest civilian honour, for him. Prayagraj Congress president Pradeep Kumar Mishra said that Rajkumar Singh, who was the party's candidate for the upcoming urban local body polls in Uttar Pradesh, was suspended for six years.
“Party has taken immediate action after his (Rajkumar Singh) comment by suspending him for 6 yrs from the party,” Mishra told news agency ANI.
Stressing that Congress was against such statements, Mishra said, “We are completely against those who give such statements...We have come to know that his psychological condition is not fit. Also, we feel he was sent on the orders of the BJP and this statement was given by him (Rajkumar Singh) on their (BJP) directions.”
The ruling Bharat Janata Party (BJP) has been facing backlash from the Opposition parties, including Congress, over the murder of Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf, captured on live television.
Atiq and Ashraf were shot dead on live television on Saturday by three men who posed as journalists while they were being taken by the police to a medical college for a mandatory check-up.
While the Opposition leaders have termed the killings as a failure of law and order, ‘art of elimination’ and ‘rule of gun in the state’, BJP leaders had called the incident a “divine justice” and “Paap, punya ka hisaab isi janm main hota hai (one's good and bad acts are settled in this lifetime only).”
Atiq's and Ashraf's killers - identified as Lovelesh Tiwari, Sunny Singh and Arun Maurya - were sent to four-day police custody on Wednesday morning. They have also been transferred to a different prison due to security fears.
Atiq's son Asad Ahmad was killed in an encounter by the Uttar Pradesh Police's Special Task Force last week in Jhansi.
Both Atiq and Asad were accused in February in the murder of lawyer Umesh Pal, and the two UP cops that were assigned to guard him, in Prayagraj. Pal was a witness to the 2005 killing of Bahujan Samaj Party lawmaker Raju Pal.
