Mukhtar Ansari convicted in kidnapping, murder case, gets 10-year jail term

A Ghazipur court convicted jailed mafia Mukhtar Ansari in a gangster case and sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment and a fine of ₹5 lakh.

The Ghazipur's MP-MLA court in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday convicted jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari in a kidnapping and murder case of Bharatiya Janata MLA Krishnanand Rai and sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment. The court also imposed a fine of ₹5 lakh on Ansari.

File photo of Mukhtar Ansari(HT_PRINT)

The court reserved its verdict on Mukhtar Ansari's elder brother and BSP MP Afzal Ansari, who is an accused in the case.

Earlier on Saturday, the window of Rai, who was murdered in Ghazipur in 2005 allegedly by Ansari and Afzal Ansari, said that the rule of mafia has ended in Uttar Pradesh and that she has faith in the judiciary.

"I believe in the judiciary. Rule of Goondas, Mafias have ended (in the state)," Alka Rai said.

In January, the police had registered a murder case against Mukhtar Ansari in connection to the 2001 'Usri Chatti' gang war incident. A case under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was registered against Ansari at Police Station Mohammadabad in Ghazipur.

On January 18, Allahabad high court dismissed the March 15 order of the Ghazipur MP-MLA Court, which allowed Ansari to be kept in a superior-class jail in Banda.

In December last year, Ansari and his aide Bhim Singh were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment by the Gangster Court in Ghazipur in five cases related to murder and attempt to murder.

The cases include the murder of constable Raghuvansh Singh and a murderous assault on an additional SP of Ghazipur among others.

On September 21, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court convicted Ansari and sentenced him for threatening jailer SK Awasthi and pointing a pistol at him. The case dates to 2003 when Lucknow district prison jailer SK Awasthi lodged an FIR saying that he was threatened to order a search of the people who came to meet Ansari in prison.

On September 23, the Lucknow bench sentenced him to five years in a case registered in 1999 under the Gangster Act. The court had also imposed a fine of ₹50,000 on Mukhtar in this 23-year-old case.

(With inputs from ANI)