Bareilly: The Allahabad high court’s Lucknow bench on Wednesday extended the judicial custody of gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad by 14 days in a Lucknow-based businessman Mohit Jaiswal abduction case. Earlier, in the morning, a battery of lawyers had arrived at Bareilly district jail to meet gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad. One of the lawyers, Nisar Ahmad, said that the jail authorities prevented them from meeting Ahmad, who had to be taken to a Lucknow court.Nisar Ahmad told TOI, “On the ground of my client’s health, we had requested the court to grant him bail but the court turned down the request. Now, his judicial custody has been extended by 14 more days.”Ahmad was shifted to Bareilly district jail from Deoria after he allegedly thrashed Jaiswal inside the jail, who was reportedly abducted by Ahmad’s goons from Lucknow on December 26. After the incident, the UP government had suspended Deoria jailer Devnath Pandey and two others — Munna Pandey and Rakesh Kumar Sharma. Besides, Deoria jail superintendent Dilip Pandey was also transferred.A team of three lawyers, including advocate Nisar Ahmad, Iqrar Ahmad and Radhe Shyam Pandey had arrived from Allahabad to discuss cases with Ahmad, the hearing of which was scheduled on Wednesday.Nisar said, “We had arrived around 7 am and wanted to meet our client Atiq Ahmad to discuss minutiae of cases for which he had to appear in Lucknow court. It was very disappointing that the PAC stopped us and despite our several requests the jail authorities didn't allow us to meet our client. We were treated as general visitors. According to the law, an inmate’s lawyer can meet him anytime in order to provide legal counselling.”Meanwhile, jail superintendent UP Mishra said that rules were equal for all.Mishra told TOI, "The matter came to my knowledge. At that time I was not in the jail. They wanted to meet Atiq at 7.30 am which was not possible, following the jail manual. We later allowed them to meet Atiq when he was being shifted to a prisoner's van as he had to leave for Lucknow. His counsels could meet him once he reached Lucknow."Mishra said that visiting time to meet inmates was from 10 am to 3 pm.

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