lucknow he was born in 1962 in a family with a modest background his father drove a tonga for a livinghis rise in life was as dramatic as his end and the story of the rise and fall of atiq ahmad provides a perfect recipe for a bollywood thrilleratiq according to sources detested poverty and after he failed in the high school examinations he decided to tackle poverty in his own wayhe began by stealing coal from trains and selling it to make money he soon moved to intimidating contractors to bag government tenders for railway scrap metalin 1979 atiq just 17 then was accused of murder in allahabad now prayagrajsoon he was running a network of several gangsters in the state his clout gradually spread to adjoining areas including phulpur and kaushambhiin 1989 when his biggest rival shaukat ilahi was killed in a police encounter atiq became the undisputed king of the underworldthe same year atiq fought his first election from the allahabad west assembly seat as an independent candidate and wonin fact he won this seat five consecutive times from 1989 to 2002 the first three times as an independent then as a samajwadi party contestant and finally as the apna dal nomineea year after he won as the apna dal candidate atiq went back to the samajwadi party and won the phulpur lok sabha seat in 2004he had to vacate his allahabad west assembly segment that triggered a chain of events leading to raju pals murder a sensational crime in which umesh pal killed on february 24 was the main witnessatiq was arrested in 2005 for raju pals murder and got bail three years laterhowever in or out of jail atiq maintained his sway over uttar pradeshs underworld and ensured his men were protectedin 2007 when he was still in jail atiq was accused of shielding his men allegedly involved in the gangrape of some madrasa studentsthis triggered an outrage and the samajwadi party expelled him this was around the time when bsp chief mayawati returned to power in up the police mounted pressure on atiq and his brother they surrendered in 2008 and were jailedwhen the indous civil nuclear deal threatened the manmohan singh government that faced a noconfidence motion in parliament in 2008 the upa crisis managers turned to a few mps lodged in jail on serious chargesatiq was among them who came out to vote on furlough and saved the day for the upa and returned to his barracksatiq also lost the 2009 parliamentary polls as an apna dal nominee from pratapgarhbut electoral defeats did not mean his clout had diminished in the 2012 up assembly election when mayawati was the incumbent chief minister atiq filed his nomination papers from jail he approached the allahabad high court seeking bail to campaign there were recusals galoreten judges refused to hear his bail application the 11th heard it and atiq came out however he lost the election to puja pal the wife of