Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday, April 13, accused the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh of carrying out a fake encounter to eliminate the son of gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad and his associate in Jhansi. He alleged that the ruling party was trying to divert the attention of the people from the real issues plaguing the state.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government does not believe in the judiciary and is taking the law into its own hands, Akhilesh said. He said it was not right for those in power to pass judgement on who was right or wrong and to decide who should live or die.

“With fake encounters, the BJP government is trying to divert attention from the real issues. The BJP does not believe in courts at all. Today's and recent encounters should also be thoroughly investigated and the culprits should not be spared. Those in power do not have the right to decide what is right or wrong. BJP is against harmony,” he tweeted in Hindi.

Akhilesh was reacting to the encounter of Atiq Ahmad’s son Asad and his aide Ghulam, both of whom were shot dead in Jhansi on Thursday. According to the police, Asad and Ghulam were trying to flee on a motorcycle when they were intercepted by a Special Task Force team in Jhansi. They opened fire on the STF team and were killed in retaliatory firing. The police claimed to have recovered sophisticated foreign-made weapons from them.

Earlier on February 24, Asad had been caught on camera opening fire at Umesh Pal in Dhoomanganj in Allahabad. Incidentally, the encounter took place at the time when Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf were being produced in court in Allahabad in connection with the Umesh Pal case. Atiq is learnt to have broken down in court during the hearing when informed of his son's encounter.