Mukhtar Ansari: Criminal and political career

Mukhar Ansari, 63, died of cardiac arrest at a hospital in Banda on Thursday.

Lucknow:

Mukhtar Ansari straddles the world of crime and politics in Uttar Pradesh. The gangster politician was implicated in 65 criminal cases ranging from murder to extortion and was elected to the provincial council five times on behalf of different political parties.

Ansari, 63, died of cardiac arrest at a hospital in Banda on Thursday.

Born into an influential family in 1963, Ansari entered the world of crime, establishing himself and his gang in the government contract mafia that was then flourishing in the state.

Ansari’s tryst with crime began as early as 1978, when he was just 15 years old. He had his first brush with the law when a case was registered against him for criminal intimidation at the Gazipur Sayedpur police station.

About a decade later, in 1986, when he became a well-known figure in contract mafia circles, another murder case was lodged against him at the Ghazipur Mohammed police station.

Over the next decade, Ansari became a common face of crime, with at least 14 serious accusations brought against him.

However, his growing criminal record did not prevent him from entering politics.

Ansari was first elected as MLA in UP Assembly in 1996 on a ticket from the Bahujan Samaj Party of Mau. He went on to successfully run for Parliament as an independent candidate in the 2002 and 2007 parliamentary elections.

In 2012, he launched Qaumi Ekta Dal (QED) and won Mau’s favor again.

In 2017, he won again from Mau. In 2022, he gave up the seat to his son Abbas Ansari, who won the seat with the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party.

From 2005 until his death, Ansari was imprisoned in various prisons in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

He has 28 criminal cases, including murder, and seven cases registered against him under the UP gang law since 2005.

Since September 2022, he has been convicted in eight criminal cases and faces trials in 21 cases in different courts.

Earlier this month, Varanasi MP/MLA Ansari was sentenced to life imprisonment and fined Rs 2.02 lakh for fraudulently obtaining arms license some 37 years ago.

This is the eighth case in which he has been sentenced by different courts in UP in the past 18 months and the second case in which he has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

On December 15, 2023, the Varanasi MP/MLA court sentenced Ansari to five years and six months in prison for issuing death threats to Mahavir Prasad Rungta. Surrey turned hostile and did not pursue the case involving the kidnapping and murder of BJP leader and coal trader Nand Kishore Rungta on January 22, 1997.

On October 27, 2023, the Ghazipur MP/MLA court sentenced him to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5 lakh in a Gangster Act case filed against him in 2010.

On June 5, 2023, Varanasi MP/MLA sentenced Ansari to life imprisonment for the murder of Awadesh Rai.

On August 3, 1991, Awadesh Rai and his brother Ajay were shot while standing outside their home in Lahurabir area of ​​Varanasi.

On April 29, 2023, the Ghazipur MP/MLA court sentenced Ansari to 10 years in prison for the murder of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai.

On September 23, 2022, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court sentenced Ansari to five years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000 in a Gangster Act case registered in 1999 at Hazratganj police station in Lucknow.

On December 15, 2022, the Ghazipur MP/MLA court sentenced him to 10 years in jail and fined him Rs 5 lakh each in two separate Gangster Act cases filed against him in 1996 and 2007.

Ansari’s first conviction in the past 13 months was handed down by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court.

On September 21, 2022, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for threatening the jailer of Lucknow district jail in 2003.

The Uttar Pradesh government had to approach the Supreme Court to bring Ansari back to the state from Ropar jail in Punjab.

Ansari, who was a provincial councilor of the Socialist Party of the Philippines at the time, was imprisoned in Ropar Prison in January 2019 on suspicion of extortion cases and remained there for more than two years.

In March 2021, while hearing the Uttar Pradesh government’s request, the Supreme Council directed the Punjab government to hand over Ansari’s custody to Uttar Pradesh and said it had rejected the request on flimsy grounds in the guise of medical issues.

The court also said that criminals who have violated the laws of the country or prisoners under trial cannot object to their transfer from one prison to another and the courts should not become helpless bystanders when the rule of law is challenged. Impunity.

Since 2020, the Ansari gang has been severely cracked down by the police, who have seized or demolished the gang’s illegal properties worth Rs 6.08 billion.

During this period, the police also stopped the gang’s illegal business, contracts or tenders worth over Rs 215 crore.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)