Top UP Police officials said on Friday that Asad and Ghulam, who were killed in an encounter of Thursday, had planned to attack convoy transporting dreaded gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed from Ahmedabad to Prayagraj.
The two did not plan to attack the convoy and free Atiq Ahmad - as is being claimed by a section of media-- but to embarrass the UP government, create a sensation and prevent Atiq's frequent trips to UP.
Asad, sources said, wanted questions to be raised on Atiq's security so that his transfer from Sabarmati jail in Gujarat to UP would be halted.
Atiq's family was apparently worried about his security since he had been brought to Prayagraj twice in a month.
The plan to kill Umesh Pal was hatched on February 11, officials said. Eight associates of Asad were also present in the meeting, reportedly arranged in collusion with prison authorities, with Atiq's brother Ashraf in Bareilly jail. There were no security cameras at the spot. Umesh Pal was murdered 13 days later.
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Atiq and Ashraf have confessed to the meeting, police sources said.
After Umesh Pal's murder on February 24, Asad hid at a house in Prayagraj for a day, police sources said. He went to Kanpur on February 26 on a motorcycle, then to Delhi's Anand Vihar on a bus, and stayed at Jamia Nagar and Sangam Vihar areas in the south of the national capital.
Asad left for Ajmer in Rajasthan on March 15 and headed to Mumbai later, after which he travelled to Jhansi through Nashik and Kanpur. He stayed for a few days at all of these places, police sources said.
Asad did not travel by train and kept using buses or other means of road transport for his almost 4,000 km journey.
On March 28, Atiq Ahmed was convicted by an MP-MLA court and sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment in the abduction case of now-dead Umesh Pal. Atiq Ahmed and his family came under the scanner as CCTV footage showed how Pal was murdered by indiscriminate firing and a bomb blast. Asad was seen chasing Umesh Pal with a gun in hand.
