Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday announced that Prayagraj’s Kasari-Masari, once considered a stronghold of slain gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed, would be renamed Shrikrishnapuri, with houses for 1,200 poor families coming up on land freed from the mafia leader’s possession.
Issuing a stern warning to criminals, he said no one would dare to indulge in mafia activities in Prayagraj, and those who did, would have to be prepared to be “reduced to dust”. “Mafia Atiq Ahmed’s terror stronghold Kasari-Masari will be developed as ‘Shrikrishnapuri’,” he said, adding that the proposed township and development projects planned during the ongoing Sharadiya Navratri period would be part of the initiative.
The chief minister made the announcement after performing the ‘bhoomi pujan’ of the Padma Lok Apartment project, a multi-storey residential complex being developed on government land in Prayagraj that was freed from the possession of Atiq Ahmed. Adityanath alleged that wherever Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf wanted, the land effectively became theirs, while the previous government remained silent before them. Under the state government’s drive to reclaim land from mafias and provide housing to the poor, 602 families in Kasari-Masari would receive houses in the first phase and another 598 in the second phase, Adityanath said. The project would eventually accommodate around 1,200 families, comprising more than 6,000 people, the chief minister said, adding that 86 poor families had earlier been provided houses in Lokarganj under a similar initiative.
The chief minister said the BJP government, which came to power in Uttar Pradesh in 2017, had adopted a “zero-tolerance” policy towards crime and criminals, with the objective of establishing the rule of law and making the state a growth engine of the country’s economy.
