Mukhar Ansari, 63, died of cardiac arrest at a hospital in Banda on Thursday.
Lucknow:
Mukhtar Ansari found himself in the world of crime and politics in Uttar Pradesh. The gangster-turned-politician was booked in 65 criminal cases ranging from murder to extortion and was elected MLA five times on the tickets of various 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 to establish himself and his gang in the government contracting mafia that was then flourishing in the state.
His encounter with crime began way back in 1978, when Ansari was just 15 years old. His first brush with the law came when he was booked for criminal intimidation at Saidpur police station in Ghazipur.
Nearly a decade later, in 1986, by the time he had become a known face in the contract mafia circle, another murder case was registered against him at Muhammad Police Station of Ghazipur.
Over the next decade, Ansari became a well-known face of crime and at least fourteen more serious charges were brought against him.
However, his growing criminal graph did not hinder his entry into politics.
Ansari was first elected as an MLA in the UP Assembly in 1996 on a Bahujan Samaj Party ticket from Mau. He continued his successful career as an independent candidate in the 2002 and 2007 parliamentary elections.
In 2012, he launched Qaumi Ekta Dal (QED) and won again from Mau.
In 2017 he won again against Mau. In 2022, he vacated the seat for his son Abbas Ansari, who won from the seat on Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party’s ticket.
Since 2005, till his death, Ansari was lodged in various jails of UP and Punjab.
He had 28 criminal cases, including that of murder, and since 2005, seven cases have been registered against him under the UP Gangster Act.
He had been convicted in eight criminal cases as of September 2022 and was tried in 21 cases before different courts.
Ansari was earlier this month given a life sentence and a fine of Rs 2.02 lakh by Varanasi MP/MLA in a case of fraudulently obtaining an arms license about 37 years ago.
This was the eighth case in which he was convicted by various courts of UP in the last eighteen months and the second in which he was given life imprisonment.
On December 15, 2023, an MP/MLA court in Varanasi sentenced Ansari to five years and six months for issuing death threats to Mahavir Prasad Rungta for turning hostile and not pursuing a case related to the kidnap and murder of BJP workers leader and coal trader Nand Kishore Rungta. on January 22, 1997.
On October 27, 2023, a Ghazipur MP/MLA court had imposed 10 years of rigorous imprisonment and a penalty of Rs 5 lakh on him in a Gangster Act case filed against him in 2010.
On June 5, 2023, an MP/MLA from Varanasi had awarded life imprisonment to Ansari in the case of the murder of Awadesh Rai, elder brother of former Congress MLA and current UP Congress president Ajay Rai.
Awadesh Rai was sprayed with bullets as he and brother Ajay stood outside their home in Lahurabir town of Varanasi on August 3, 1991.
On April 29, 2023, the Ghazipur MP/MLA court had sentenced Ansari to 10 years in jail in a case of murder of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai.
The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court had on September 23, 2022, awarded Ansari five years of rigorous imprisonment in a Gangster Act case registered against him in 1999 at Hazratganj police station in Lucknow and imposed a fine of Rs 50,000.
The Ghazipur MP/MLA court had on December 15, 2022, sentenced him to 10 years in jail and imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh each in two separate Gangster Act cases filed against him in 1996 and 2007.
Ansari’s first conviction in the last thirteen months was delivered by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court.
He was jailed for seven years on September 21, 2022, for threatening the jailer of the 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, then a BSP MLA, was lodged in Ropar jail in January 2019 in connection with an extortion case and remained there for over two years.
In March 2021, the SC, while hearing a plea from the UP government, had directed the Punjab government to transfer Ansari’s custody to UP, saying it was refused on trivial grounds on the pretext of medical issues.
The court also said that a convict or a prisoner under trial who disobeys the laws of the land cannot resist his transfer from one prison to another and that the courts should not be helpless bystanders when the rule of law is being challenged. impunity.
Since 2020, the Ansari gang has been under intense pressure from the police, who seized or destroyed illegal properties worth Rs 608 crore belonging to the gang.
Illegal business, contracts or tenders worth over Rs 215 crore of the gang were also stopped by the police during this period.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by WhatsNew2Day staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)