Mukhtar Ansari gets 10 yrs’ RI in third Gangster Act case

Lucknow/Varanasi: Incarcerated Mafioso-turned politician Mukhtar Ansari, who has been in jail in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab since 2005, was awarded 10 years of rigorous imprisonment on Friday by Ghazipur MP/MLA court in a 13-year-old case of Gangster Act lodged against him in 2010.

The case was lodged after the murder of one Kapil Dev Singh under Karanda police station limits of Ghazipur district in 2009 and the 2010 attempt o n the life of one Mir Hasan in which Ansari was accused as a key conspirator.

UP Police Special Director General (Special DG), Law and Order, Prashant Kumar said the Additional District Judge-4 of Ghazipur MP/MLA court convicted Ansari and his aide Sonu Yadav in the case on Thursday. On Friday, the court pronounced the quantum of punishment and awarded 10 years of rigorous imprisonment for Mukhtar Ansari and five years of rigorous imprisonment to Sonu Yadav. He said the court also slapped a penalty of ₹5 lakh and ₹2 lakh on Mukhtar Ansari and Sonu Yadav respectively.

The Special DG said Ansari had been convicted and awarded punishment in six separate cases in the past 13 months since September 2022.

Another police official said the maximum punishment awarded to Ansari was life imprisonment by the Varanasi MP/MLA court on June 5 this year. He said the Varanasi court sentenced him for the murder of Awadhesh Rai, elder brother of former Congress MLA and present UP Congress president Ajay Rai. He informed that Rai was sprayed with bullets when he and his brother Ajay were standing outside their house in the Lahurabeer locality of Varanasi on August 3, 1991.

He said Ansari was awarded 10 years of imprisonment in three separate cases of Gangster Act lodged in Ghazipur district. The Lucknow bench of Allahabad high court convicted Ansari first in the recent times and awarded seven years’ imprisonment on September 21, 2022, for threatening the jailor of the Lucknow district jail in 2003.

Earlier, Ansari was convicted by a Delhi court and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment on February 4, 2003, in a Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (TADA) case lodged against him on December 10, 1993. The Supreme Court had later set aside the Delhi court conviction and acquitted him on April 21, 2005.

Notably, so far the state police have confiscated properties over worth ₹600 crore owned by Ansari and his gang members under the provisions of the Gangster Act since 2017. Also, the annual earning of over ₹215 crore from different illegal businesses and contracts were ended during the same period. Besides, action was initiated against Ansari’s 288 gang members and 156 criminal cases registered against them.