Who is Mukhtar Ansari, the legislator who has been reinstated in the UP prison from Punjab?

A former political activist, Mukhtar Ansari, was returned to the Banda prison in Uttar Pradesh on April 7, after serving two years in the Rupnagar prison in Punjab where he was detained since January 2019 on a charge of robbery.

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Ansari, 57, was placed in an ambulance guarded by dozens of security personnel carrying firearms throughout the 900-mile journey between Punjab and Haryana. Uttar Pradesh police seized Ansari's detention in Rupnagar prison on April 6, as ordered by the Supreme Court.

Ansari made headlines last week after Uttar Pradesh police installed a MOTO claiming that fake documents had been used to register an ambulance used to transport him from Punjab prison to court. The government of the Baratiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Yogi Adityanath also told the Supreme Court that the Punjab Congress government was "shamelessly" protecting him by not giving him custody so that he could face charges of 10 counts of murder, robbery, cheating, and gang activity. "

READ Adityanath's war on crime: Wars erupted after Yogi took the oath of office as Uttar Pradesh CM in 2017

In October last year, Mohadabadabad BJP Parliamentary Alka Rai, the wife of former MP Krishnanad Rai, wrote a letter to Congress Secretary-General Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, accusing the Punjab government of aiding and abetting the assassination of her husband, Ansari. appearing in court in Uttar Pradesh.

Ansari's wife, Afshan, however, appealed to the Supreme Court on April 6, seeking guidance from Uttar Pradesh police and prison authorities to ensure her husband gets a "free and innocent trial" in the criminal case against him and not just be killed in an accident. reports Bar & Bench.

From a famous family

Mukhtar Ansari was born on June 30, 1963, to a Ghazipur family, who had given to famous people. He is the grandfather of his father, Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, who was a freedom fighter and president of Congress in 1927-28 without being one of the founding members and former vice-chancellor of the Jamia Millia Islamia university in Delhi. His maternal grandfather Brigadier Mohammad Usman Ansari, known as the ‘Lion of Nowshera’, was a Mahavir Chakra. His brother, Afzal Ansari, is a BSP MP from Ghazipur.

Bad cases

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Ansari, who was involved in the property business and contract work, is said to have started expanding his network in the criminal world in the 1990s across Uttar Pradesh also known as Purvanchal. First, he was a member of the Makhanu Singh gang. Today, he is a major figure at the Mohammadadabad police station in Ghazipur district with 38 serious criminal charges against him. In all, he is involved in 52 criminal cases in the UP and elsewhere. You have been acquitted of many cases, however. In July 2020, a Delhi court acquitted him and six others, including my brother and BSP MP Afzal Ansari in the 2005 murder of BJP Minister Krishna Nand Rai.

In 2017, the Ghazipur district court, UP acquitted him in a case involving the murder of Ajai Prakash Singh, a 2009 contractor in Mau.

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Bad man turns to politics

Like any other bad political man, Ansari is one of the most celebrated 'Robinhoods' in the region. Voters in Mau (Sadar), 100 kilometers from Gorakhpur, have elected him five times, often while in prison.

Ansari successfully contested his first congressional election with a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ticket from the Mau seat in 1996. In 2002, he again won the seat as an independent, after being denied a ticket by the BSP. In 2007, he retained the seat as an independent candidate. He also joined the BSP and was defeated in the Lok Sabha by-elections in 2009 by Murta Manohar Joshi of BJP in Varanasi, the seat now represented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. After being fired from the BSP and due to his criminal links in 2010, Ansari flocked to Quami Ekta Dal and won the 2012 convention election in Mau.

In the 2017 UP election, Ansari won for Mau with a BSP ticket again. However, his son Abbas Ansari, who was in trouble from the King's seat, and his brother Sibgatullah Ansari, who had participated in Mohammadadabad, lost the election.

Does crime pay in Uttar Pradesh?

Ansari is a product of political lawlessness that emerged in the UPs in the 1980s when a town panchayat and conference rallies were held under the guise of dacoits. Voters have always preferred legislatures with criminal cases, in the UP. According to 403 new lawyers elected at the Uttar Pradesh conference in 2017, 143 have criminal charges, including murder, pending, according to an election report, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). Of the 143, 107 people are facing serious charges including murder and crimes against women.

Punjab connection

Ansari, who has been in jail for a long time since 2005, was arrested in January 2019 for allegedly making a phone call to a builder based in Mohali. In May 2020, during an attack by Uttar Pradesh police against Ansari and his party, seventy-two licenses were suspended for contacting him and his accomplices. Rs 66 million worth of equipment was recovered, and rockets fired at Ansari and his allies were released, police said.