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50-member UP police team to bring back Mukhtar Ansari from Punjab jail in armoured vehicle
Mukhtar Ansari, a BSP MLA has been accused in over a dozen fresh cases registered against him in the past six months in the crackdown launched against him, his wife, two sons and close aides.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLA Mukhtar Ansari who has been lodged in different jails in Punjab for nearly 22 months would be brought back to Uttar Pradesh by a 50-member police team that will be sent on Tuesday, senior police officials said here on Sunday.
The team will be led by a deputy superintendent of police (DSP).
A senior police official privy to the development said the police want to produce Ansari in a MP/MLA court on October 21 in a case pending against him.
He said Ansari was accused in over a dozen fresh cases registered against him in the past six months in the crackdown launched against him, his wife, two sons and close aides.
Ansari would be brought back in an armoured police vehicle, the official said. The gangster-turned-politician has been in Punjab jails since January 2019 when he was produced there in a local court on production on a complaint of extortion lodged by a local builder. The officer said Ansari remained in Ropar jail initially and was later shifted to the Mohali jail.
He said Ansari reportedly got himself shifted to Punjab jail fearing threat to his life in UP jails after one his closest aide Prem Prakash Singh alias Munna Bajrangi was shot dead inside Baghpat jail by another gangster Sunil Rathi on July 9, 2018.
The officer said the role of some UP jail officials were questioned when Punjab police was allowed to take along Ansari on a production warrant so easily without bringing it to the notice of senior state government authorities.
The Yogi Adityanath government is carrying out a drive against illegal properties of Ansari and his henchmen in eastern Uttar Pradesh, including Varanasi, Ghazipur, Mau, Jaunpur, Azamgarh, Lucknow and other parts of the state. In the past few months, the state authorities had seized property worth ₹68 crore from Ansari’s aides and freed illegal possession on properties. Moreover, the gang’s annual earning of ₹45 crore was stopped while as many as 96 gang members were arrested and some others were killed in encounters.
