Ansari moves court, says media shouldn’t call him ‘mafia don’

“We (UP Police) don’t call him mafia don, but he is listed as one of the criminal mafioso in police records, with several cases of heinous crime registered against him, says special DG, law and order

LUCKNOW

Gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari. (File Photo)

Gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari has moved a local court in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki against the use of terms like “mafia don” and “baahubali” in the media, alleging that the derogatory terms were being used by his political rivals to malign his image and influence court proceedings.

“Some electronic media are running stories with the headlines — ‘Mafia Don Mukhtar Ansari’, ‘Mukhtar Ansari Bahubali’... Such terms and adjectives are used to malign his image,” the former Mau MLA’s lawyer Randheer Singh Suman said in the petition. “I request the court to take measures to stop such things keeping in mind the circumstances.”

An MP/MLA court in Ghazipur on April 29, sentenced Ansari, and his brother Afzal Ansari, a former BSP MP, to 10 years and four years in jail, respectively, under the Gangsters Act, 2007, in connection with the 2005 killing of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai, and the 1997 kidnapping and murder BJP leader Nand Kishore Rungta.

In his plea, Ansari’s lawyer has alleged that some serving and retired police officers were running an agenda to malign his image and promote media trial against him even as a case under the Gangsters Act was pending.

Police officials, however, said that Ansari was listed as a “mafioso” in police records. “We (UP Police) don’t call him mafia don, but he is listed as one of the criminal mafioso in police records, with several cases of heinous crime registered against him,” said Prashant Kumar, special director general, law and order, UP Police.