Gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari convicted in Gangster Act case, gets 10-year jail term

#WATCH | UP: Ghazipur’s MP-MLA court to pronounce verdict today in a kidnapping and murder case against gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari, his elder brother & Ghazipur BSP MP Afzal Ansari; security visuals from Ghazipur pic.twitter.com/ZAqUvSNXFT

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“Mukhtar Ansari appeared before the court through video conference. The court sentenced Mukhtar to 10 years imprisonment in the case and also imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh on him,” said government counsel, Ghazipur, Neeraj Srivastava.

There were 10 prosecution witnesses in the case.

A history-sheeter of Mohammadabad police station in Ghazipur with 61 cases against him, Ansari has been in jail since 2005 after he surrendered in a communal riot case in Mau in which seven people died. Mukhtar had represented the Mau Sadar seat five times – twice as a BSP candidate and thrice as an Independent.

Ansari did not contest the last Assembly election and fielded his elder son Abbas from the same Mau Sadar seat on a ticket of the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP), which had allied with the Samajwadi Party for the polls.

On September 21 last year, the Allahabad High Court hearing an appeal sentenced Ansari to seven years imprisonment in a 2003 case of assault on a jailer. A day later, the high court, in another case, sentenced Ansari to five years imprisonment in a case registered against him under the Uttar Pradesh Gangsters Act in Lucknow in 1999.

On December 15 last year, a court in Ghazipur district convicted Ansari under the Uttar Pradesh Gangster Act and sentenced him to 10 years in jail along with his alleged associate Bheem Singh. The case in which he has been convicted dates back to 1996 when Ghazipur police booked him under the Gangster Act.