Assailants used banned Zigana pistols, says FIR

PRAYAGRAJ: The three assailants, who shot dead gangster-turned politician Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf, used highly sophisticated Zigana pistols which are banned in India.

Zigana is a semi-automatic pistol produced by Turkish firearm manufacturing company TISAS. The production of the said pistols started in 2001 and is one of the first pistols in Turkey with an original design.

Zigana pistols have a locked-slide short recoil operating mechanism with a modified browning-type locking system.

These are illegal and banned in India. The price of these pistols is around Rs 6 to 7 lakh.

According to an FIR lodged in the murder of Atiq and his brother Ashraf, it is said that the two were coming out of a hospital after undergoing a medical check-up on Saturday night when they were surrounded by media.

“All of a sudden two of the journalists dropped their camera and mic id respectively and fired at Atiq and Ashraf in a flash. All of a sudden, the third journalist also started firing and till someone could understand the matter, the criminals in garb of media, killed Atiq and Ashraf. Policeman Mann Singh sustained injuries and one of the attackers also got injured in firing,” the FIR said.

After that, shooters Lovlesh Tiwari, Sunny Singh and Arun Maurya, dropped their loaded weapons. Some of the journalists who were covering the incident also got minor injuries.

It further said that during the interrogation, all three revealed that they wanted to eliminate Atiq and Ashraf’s gang and make a name for themselves in the state so that they could benefit in the future. The assailants could not escape after committing the crime as they failed to estimate the police’s tight surveillance.

The three attackers said that they had been waiting for the right opportunity to kill them and had disguised themselves as media persons, but they could not find the right time until Saturday when they carried out the incident.