Mukhtar’s missing ‘Sikandar’ is among UP’s most wanted

It has been nearly two decades now that Atta-Ur-Rehman, with a ₹2 lakh award on him, has eluded the CBI.
Hardly anyone seems to be aware of him, not even the CBI or any other investigative agency. And if you are wondering who he is, here is some information.
Atta-Ur-Rehman, was a former poll campaigner for Mafioso Mukhtar Ansari’s elder brother and BSP MP Afzal Ansari who graduated to becoming a key planner and executor of various crimes and also became an arms supplier of Mukhtar’s IS-191 gang.
Among the wanted criminals in UP police as well as Central Bureau of Investigation list, he is also among the key accused in BJP MLA Krishna Nand Rai’s murder. The UP police website in its wanted segment mentions his name as Atta-Ur-Rahman alias Sikandar alias Babu, the resident of Maharupur village under Mohammadabad police station limits of Ghazipur.
“Like his nick name Sikandar (the name given to Greek ruler Alexander the Great after he conquered Persia which means defender or warrior) he used to work as key planner and executor for Mukhtar Ansari’s gang by making fool proof plan to commit major crimes at least till 2005 when his name surfaced in the sensational killing of Krishna Nand Rai after which he disappeared. No investigative agency is aware about his whereabouts for the past 19 years,” said Manish Singh, a local journalist of Ghazipur who is aware of the gang’s modus-operandi and its members.
“Other than having a three-decade-old faded photograph of Atta-Ur-Rahman (expected to be in his early 60s now), the investigative agencies don’t have any clue about his whereabouts, his mobile number, bank account number or details about his family members. His old house at his native village is badly dilapidated and nobody lives there, and he has no communication with his wife and children in India. He has been off late working for the IS-191 on behest of Mukhtar Ansari just like underworld don Dawood Ibrahim operated in India while sitting abroad,” Singh added.
Deputy superintendent of police (DGP) of UP Special Task Force (STF), Deepak Kumar Singh said that as per information available, Sikandar has relatives in Pakistan. He sneaked out of India and believed to have married another woman Mumtaz Begum and settled at an unknown location in Pakistan.
He said Atta-Ur-Rahman became one of the key members of Mukhtar’s gang after Mukhtar Ansari married his niece Afsha Ansari in 1989. He said Atta-Ur-Rahman gained notoriety when his name first surfaced in the kidnapping of Delhi’s Punjabi Bagh resident businessman Ved Prakash Goel in 1993 along with Mukhtar Ansari, who was also arrested in the case from Panchkula in Haryana. He said Atta-Ur-Rahman was considered the key planner behind Goel’s kidnapping.
“Thereafter, Atta-Ur-Rahman’s involvement surfaced in kidnapping and murder of coal tycoon Nand Kishore Rungta in January 1997. Again, it was Rahman, who went inside Rungta’s house for business conversation and kidnapped him after bringing him out of his house while interacting with him. Since then, Rungta’s body was not recovered and he was alleged to be murdered in the fight to prove supremacy in coal business by Ansari’s gang,” said the official. He added, “Atta-Ur-Rahman’s name again surfaced in another kidnapping of UP Electricity Board general manager Dinesh Chandra’s son Deepak from Obra, Sonbhadra in 1997 but the complainant later turned hostile”.
He said Atta-Ur-Rahman last surfaced in the most sensational murder of BJP MLA Krishna Nand Rai on November 29, 2005, when Rai along with his six accomplices and a police gunner was sprayed with bullets fired from assault rifle like AK-47 and semi-automatic weapons by a gang of seven assailants including Atta-ur-Rahman, slain gangster Prem Prakash Singh alias Munna Bajrangi and another slain gangster Sanjeev Maheshwari alias Jeeva. He said Rahman again was the key planner of Rai’s execution by surrounding his motorcade on a narrow passage near Bhawarkol locality under Ghazipur’s Mahmoodabad assembly constituency when he was returning after inaugurating a local cricket tournament and opened indiscriminate fire without giving any chance to respond. Over 50 bullet wounds were found all over Rai’s body.
Since then, he has been living an elusive life and investigative agencies are not even aware whether he is alive or not when one by one all key members of the gang are dead.
The leader of the IS-191 gang Mukhtar Ansari died after suffering cardiac arrest in Banda jail on March 28 this year. Ansari’s three main aides Munna Bajrangi, Jeeva and Merajuddin were killed in different incidents between 2018 and 2023.
Bajrangi was shot dead by another murder convict Sunil Rathi inside the Baghpat jail on July 9, 2018. On the same pattern, Mukhtar Ansari’s another close aide Merajuddin along with another criminal and Mukeem Kala was sprayed with bullets by another jailed gangster Anshu Dixit in a shootout inside Chitrakoot jail on May 14, 2021. Dixit, who used a semi-automatic pistol, was later gunned down by the police in their attempt to overpower him.
Thereafter, Jeeva was shot dead by hired shooter Vijay Yadav when he was being produced before a court in Lucknow on June 7, 2023. The police claimed Jeeva was gunned down in a gang rivalry with another elusive Mafioso Badan Singh alias Baddo.