The Uttar Pradesh Police tried to capture jailed gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed’s son and an aide alive during a “gunfight” on Thursday, the first information report filed in the case claimed, according to NDTV.

Atiq Ahmed’s 19-year-old son Asad Ahmed and the aide named Ghulam were killed by the police in a “gunfight” on Thursday. They both were wanted in the murder case of lawyer Umesh Pal and were were carrying a reward of Rs 5 lakh each.

The manner of killings had raised questions whether the incident was staged. Samajwadi Party Akhilesh Yadav had described the “gunfight” as “fake encounter”.

However, on Thursday, the police dismissed allegations that the killings were staged.

The FIR, filed at the Badagaon police station in Jhansi district, stated that police officials intercepted Asad and Ghulam while they were riding two motorcycles that did not have registered number plates.

According to the police, when the officials asked them to stop, they tried to escape by taking an unpaved road. However, they were surrounded by the police, the FIR said.

“The members of both the [Special Task Force] teams, who had surrounded them, tried to reach within their firing range without caring for their lives and tried to catch them alive, but had to return fire in self-defence in view of the indiscriminate firing from the miscreants,” the police alleged, according to PTI.

The FIR claimed that after the firing from the other side stopped, the police approached the two men and found them in a wounded state. “They still showed signs of life, so we immediately sent them to a hospital in two separate ambulances, but later found out that they had died,” it claimed.

The police said that they recovered a gun, empty shells, live cartridges, a motorcycle and other evidence from the place where the gunfight was said to have taken place.

Umesh Pal murder case

Umesh Pal was a key witness in the 2005 murder of Bahujan Samaj Party MLA Raju Pal. He was shot dead in Prayagraj on February 24. His two security guards were injured in the incident and later died during treatment.

Atiq Ahmed, his wife Sahista Parveen, their two sons, his younger brother Khalid Azim alias Ashraf and others were booked by the Uttar Pradesh Police in the case.

Two accused in Pal’s killing – Arbaaz and Vijay Chaudhary – were also killed in “gunfights” by the police on February 27 and March 6. Extrajudicial executions, popularly known as “encounters”, have risen since the Bhartiya Janata Party government came to power in Uttar Pradesh in 2017.