Ex-MLA Mukhtar Ansari, MP brother Afzal jailed, fined in Gangster Act case

A special court in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur on Saturday (April 29) convicted former MLA Mukhtar Ansari in cases related to kidnapping and murder. The MP/MLA court sentenced the jailed gangster-turned-politician to 10 years’ imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh.

The case under the Gangster Act was reportedly registered after Ansari was booked for his involvement in the kidnapping of Vishwa Hindu Parishad office-bearer and coal industrialist Nandkishore Rungta in 1996 and the murder of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai in 2005.

The five-time former MLA is currently lodged in UP’s Banda jail.

Afzal Ansari may lose LS seat

The Additional Sessions Judge/First MP MLA Court on Saturday also convicted Mukhtar’s elder brother and BSP MP Afzal Ansari in the case and handed him four years in jail and a fine of Rs 1 lakh. The verdict could lead to Afzal Ansari losing his Lok Sabha membership.

In January, a case was registered against Mukhtar Ansari in connection with the 2001 Usri Chatti gang war incident. Ghazipur’s Mohammadabad police reportedly booked him under IPC sections 302, 147, 148, 149.

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The trial, under the Uttar Pradesh Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act, ended on April 1. Government advocate Neeraj Srivastava represented the state.

Earlier, on January 18, the Allahabad High Court dismissed a March 15 order pronounced by the Ghazipur MP-MLA Court, allowing Ansari to be lodged in a superior-class jail in Banda.

Past cases

In December 2022, a Ghazipur court sentenced Mukhtar Ansari and his aide Bhim Singh to 10 years in jail in connection with five cases related to murder and attempt to murder. Among those were the murder of constable Raghuvansh Singh and assault on Ghazipur’s Additional SP.

Last September, the Allahabad HC’s Lucknow Bench sentenced Mukhtar to a seven-year prison term for intimidating a jailer in 2003 by pointing a gun at him and threatening to kill him.

Later that same month, the Lucknow Bench sentenced Mukhtar to five years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000 under the Gangster Act in relation to an FIR lodged in 1999 alleging that his gang committed offences such as murder, extortion, kidnapping, and abduction.

(With agency inputs)