SP candidate Atiq Ahmed booked; Mayawati takes a swipe at CM Akhilesh

In an embarrassment for Samajwadi Party, its controversial candidate from Kanpur Cantt Atiq Ahmed, who is a mafia don-turned-politician, has been booked for assault, prompting BSP on Thursday to ridicule Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s claims on law and order.

In less than a week after he was declared SP candidate, an FIR was registered against Ahmed for allegedly assaulting the staff of Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences (SHIATS) on the outskirts of Allahabad on Wednesday.

“A case has been registered against Ahmed and four of his supporters under IPC sections pertaining to rioting, unlawful assembly, dacoity and criminal intimidation on the basis of the complaint by SHIATS Public Relations Officer Ramakant Dubey,” Senior SP (Allahabad) Shalabh Mathur said, adding 50 other unnamed persons have also been named in the FIR.

Ahmed has, however, denied the allegations. Taking a dig at Akhilesh over his claims on cutting down response time of state police, BSP supremo Mayawati termed the alleged manhandling of university staff by Ahmed as a “slap on the face of state government.”

“The Chief Minister makes tall claims about law and order and development, but the entire nation knows that ever since this government came to power, 22 crore people of the state have been living under threat and fear of criminals,” she said in a statement here.

“Government advertisements have been put up on ‘UP-100’ (helpline) cutting police response time to 20 minutes and in this light, the goondagardi (hooliganism) of Atiq Ahmed in Allahabad, as reported in media, is a slap on the face of SP government,” she said. The BSP supremo also challenged the Chief Minister to send goonda and mafia elements associated with his party to jail.