A former Indian politician convicted of kidnapping was shot last night (Saturday) live on television, alongside his brother.
Atiq Ahmed, who was escorted by policemen, was talking to reporters when Akdeem was pulled out near his head in the city of Prayagraj (Allahabad), and he was shot.
Three people posing as journalists surrendered immediately after the shooting and were arrested by the police.
Ahmed's teenage son was killed by the target a few days earlier.
Dozens of cases, including kidnapping, murder and extortion, were opened against Ahmed in the last two decades.
A local court sentenced him and two other people to life imprisonment in March in the kidnapping case.
Ahmed previously claimed that the police threatened his life.
In a video, Ahmed and his brother, Ashraf, are seen handcuffed, talking to reporters on their way to a medical examination at the hospital, just seconds before they were both shot.
We can also see in the video that was distributed on social networks and television channels, that Ahmed was asked if he was present at his son's funeral.
His last words were: "They didn't take us, so we didn't go."
The three shooting suspects arrived on motorcycles, police said.
A policeman and a journalist were also injured in the shooting.
Police Chief Yogi Adityanath ordered an investigation into the hickey and banned large gatherings and the city was placed under a kind of lockdown.
Ahmed was involved in politics and the world of crime.
He was first charged with murder in 1979.
In the following decade, he gained a strong foothold in the western part of the city.
He first won the elections as an independent candidate and became a legislator from the state of Uttar Pradesh in 1989.
He retained his seat in the next two elections, and in his fourth victory he became a legislator from the Samajwadi Party (SP).
In 2004, he won a seat in the general election as the party's candidate and became a Member of Parliament.
At the same time, the cases against him continued to pile up, and in the following years he began to lose elections.
In 2019, India's high court ordered Ahmed to be jailed in the state of Gujarat after it was revealed that he had planned attacks on businessmen from prison in Uttar Pradesh, where he was being held while awaiting trial in another case.
Atiq Ahmed and his brother seconds before the shooting (photo: screenshot, Twitter)
In March, Ahmed was returned to Paraigaraj to appear in a local court to read his sentence in the kidnapping case.
His brother Ashraf, who was serving time in another prison, was also brought to the city to be questioned.
The two were being questioned about the February murder of Umesh Pal, a key witness in the 2005 murder of Raju Pal, a lawyer from the regional BSP party.
Pal defeated Ashraf in the 2004 elections.
Ahmed's son, Asad, and several other people, were suspected of Pal's murder.
Assad and another man were killed by police last week during a shootout, police said.
Last month, India's highest court refused to consider one man's claim that his life was under threat in prison by the police.
More than 180 people accused of various charges have been killed by the police in the country in the last six years.
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