Uttar Pradesh builds 76 flats on slain Atiq Ahmed's seized land

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 30

Sending a political message ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath today handed over keys of 76 flats built on land confiscated from murdered gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed in Prayagraj to beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY). The beneficiaries were selected through a lottery earlier this month. Visuals from the site showed the CM and his deputy Keshav Maurya inspecting the flats and interacting with children. The CM later handed over allotment letters to the beneficiaries during an event.

Atiq along with his brother Ashraf was shot dead at point-blank range by three men posing as journalists during a media interaction in April. Addressing the event,Adityanath said the previous government stood with the mafia when it came to freeing the land of the poor. “This is the same state where before 2017 any mafia could grab the land of the poor, businessmen or even the government. Now, we are building homes for the poor on the same land that we have seized from these mafias. This is a big achievement,” he said.

The CM had laid the foundation stone for the housing project on this 1,731 sq m site in the Lukerganj area of the city on December 26, 2021. According to an official, the four-storey towers house 1 BHK flats. Each flat costs Rs 6 lakh and the beneficiaries paid Rs 3.5 lakh. The Centre paid Rs 1.5 lakh, while the state government paid Rs 1 lakh for every house, the official said.

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