On April 15, as the news of mafia-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf Azeem’s death spread like a wildfire, Surajkali, a farmer from Prayagraj’s Jhalwa locality looked up in the sky and thanked her God in her own different way.
The day was not all about end of Atiq’s terror but the end of Ramkali Kushwaha’s 35-year-long fight to save her ancestral property from the clutches of Atiq and his brother.
Ramkali is one of the few victims of Atiq who mustered enough courage to stand against the mighty Atiq, who eyed upon her property at a prime location. Though in the battle, she lost her husband and son and almost everything but she is happy that Atiq’s terror has ended.
Ramkali’s story goes back to the late 1980s when Atiq’s men approached her and forced her to sell her 12 bighas of land, located opposite the Indian Oil Depot in Jhalwa. “Atiq’s men said he wants to purchase my land. Initially, they requested but later they threatened me of dire consequences for refusing Atiq. Until then we were a happy family,” recollected Ramkali Kushwaha, who is in her late 50s.
Ramkali said the threats from Atiq and his brother became a common thing, as most of the time, his men used to be around her house and land to mount pressure on her family to sell off their land. But nothing worked as Ramkali was adamant that she won’t let Atiq take her ancestral property, which is the only thing she has to fend for her family.
“In 1989, my husband Brij Mohan Kushwaha, who used to work in a nearby factory, left for work and then never returned home. It didn’t take me any longer to understand that it’s Atiq’s another pressure tactic to mount pressure on the family to sell the ancestral land. I also approached Dhoomanganj Police Station to lodge a report against Atiq, who was then a gangster-in-making, but the police refused to help me and shoved me away,” said Ramkali.
She said in the same year in 1989, Atiq won the election and became an MLA for the first time after which he called her and told that her husband is no more. “He said now I will look after your family if you give your 12 bighas land to me for which he has planned a multi-storeyed building. But my response remained negative,” she said. However, after running from pillar to post, she managed to lodge an FIR against Atiq. She said from 1989 to 2016, there were several occasions when she and her family members were attacked by Atiq’s men and were forced to hand over the land to Atiq.
“But I was adamant that I won’t give an inch of land to this mafia and will continue to fight. In 2016, the Atiq’s men launched a fierce attack on her house in which her son suffered a serious bullet injury and had to be hospitalised. But the threats from Atiq continued even in the hospital,” she added.
However, in 2017, when the Yogi Adityanath government first came to power in Uttar Pradesh, Ramkali said somewhere, “I knew that this government is not going to withstand Mafiaraj,” she said. However, when Asad was killed in a police encounter and later on when mafia brothers were killed, she heaved a sigh of relief as her almost 35-year-old legal battle came to an end.
Not just Ramkali, there were several others whom Atiq tortured to the core. A few of them hail from Chakia locality of Prayagraj where Atiq’s office is located. Some of them were detained for honking in front of Atiq’s office, locally famous as ‘Sansad ji ka Durbar’.
“Atiq’s men used to detain us even for honking in front of his office. It used to haunt people so much that they started taking another route. However, now the don is dead but the tales of his terror are still doing the rounds. The Uttar Pradesh government has released a long list of the people who remained a witness to Atiq’s terror. Ramkali’s name is on the top. People say though the don is dead, but the torture they faced would haunt them for life.
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