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Mukhtar Ansari convicted in 5th case in 9 months
Varanasi MP/MLA court on Monday found him guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment for the murder of Awadesh Rai, the elder brother of former Congress MLA Ajay Rai, 32 years ago
Over the past nine months, gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari was convicted and sentenced in five separate cases registered against him since September 2002.
Ansari’s latest conviction came after the Varanasi MP/MLA court on Monday found him guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment for the murder of Awadesh Rai, the elder brother of former Congress MLA Ajay Rai, said senior police officials. This was a 32-year-old case.
On August 3, 1991, Rai was sprayed with bullets when he and brother Ajay were standing outside their house in the Lahurabeer locality of Varanasi. The five assailants, who came to the scene in a van, opened fire on Rai, who was then declared brought-dead at a hospital. Rai’s killing was said to be the fallout of Ansari’s enmity with another gangster-politician Brijesh Singh, with whom Rai was said to be close.
Earlier on April 29 this year, the Ghazipur MP/MLA court had sentenced Ansari to 10 years of imprisonment in another case registered against him under the Gangster Act in 2007 in connection with the killing of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai on November 29, 2005 and the kidnapping-murder of BJP leader Nand Kishore Rungta on January 22, 1997.
“In the 2007 case, Mukhtar and his MP brother Afzal Ansari were convicted and slapped with 10-year and four-year prison terms, respectively. The court had imposed a fine of ₹5 lakh and ₹1 lakh on Mukhtar and Afzal,” said Prashant Kumar, special director general, Law and Order.
The Special DG said the sentencing of Mukhtar Ansari, a former MLA, in long pending cases was possible only due to the effective monitoring of prosecution officials as well as the strong commitment and zero political interference in action against criminal elements.
Kumar added Ansari’s first conviction in the last nine months was awarded by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court. He was slapped with seven years of imprisonment on September 21, 2022 for threatening the jailor of the Lucknow district jail in 2003.
He said the jailor had lodged an FIR against Ansari at the Alambagh police station of Lucknow for issuing threats when the former screened people who came to meet Ansari in the jail, and even pointed a gun at him.
Ansari’s second conviction in the nine months was also awarded by the Lucknow bench that was hearing a Gangster Act case registered against the ex-MLA in 1999, Kumar added. In the case, which was registered at the Hazratganj police station of the state capital, Ansari was given two years of imprisonment and slapped with a fine of ₹10,000.
His third conviction was also in a Gangster Act case registered in Ghazipur district in 1999, when a local court sentenced him to 10 years of imprisonment and imposed a fine of ₹5 lakh on him on December 15, 2022.
Ansari, meanwhile, was convicted for the first time by a Delhi court and sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment on February 4, 2003 in a Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (TADA) case lodged against him on December 10, 1993. The Supreme Court later set aside the conviction on April 21, 2005.
Notably, the state police, so far, have confiscated properties worth ₹291.19 crore owned by Ansari and his gang members, under the provisions of the Gangster Act. Also, properties worth ₹284.77 lakh were demolished and illegal possessions were freed from under Ansari and his men, he added.
Mukhtar: A life of crime
45 years of criminal history 62 criminal cases lodged against him since 1978 14 cases of murder since 1986 Jailed since 2005 26 cases, including six murder and seven Gangster Act cases, registered against him even when he was in jail Acquitted in a case recently on May 17
