A special MP-MLA court in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi on 13th March sentenced gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari to life imprisonment in a three-decade-old fake arms licence case. Additionally, Judge Awanish Gautam imposed a substantial fine of Rs 2 lakh and 2 thousand on him.
The case against Mukhtar Ansari was registered under IPC sections 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 120B (criminal conspiracy), along with provisions of the Arms Act at Mohammadabad police station in Ghazipur in December 1990.
Mukhtar Ansari has been handed down a life sentence in jail for the second time in nine months by the MP-MLA court of Varanasi district. This case involved a Ghazipur phoney arms license that was filed over 33 years ago. The maximum sentence imposed on Mukhtar Ansari will deter anti-social individuals, the court added in a scathing remark.
The court highlighted, “The accused’s arrogance and criminal attitude are demonstrated by their acquisition of the arms license through the District Magistrate’s falsified signature. These are the people in society who engage in such crimes to arbitrarily make their name in the criminal world. They also become their role models by influencing the youth’s impressionable minds.”
The court further noted, “This has a negative impact on society. If appropriate action is not taken promptly, these people eventually turn into mafia members and criminals. The perpetrator’s criminal background corroborates this. These offences do not represent typical criminal activity. It includes fabricating the signatures of district senior service officers. The social and national security is greatly threatened by the improper acquisition of arms licenses. The gravity of the violation is very serious. It needs to be punished more severely while keeping it in a specific category.”
The mafia is already held in Banda Jail. Security concerns prevented him from being taken to Varanasi. He was pronounced guilty by the court on 12th March and the quantum of punishment amount was declared on 13th March. He attended the hearing through video conferencing. According to sources within the jail, Ansari started to plead before the judge and sat down holding his head during the proceedings. Reportedly he was so depressed that he didn’t even break his Iftar on the 13th of March evening. He later broke his Ramadan fast by sipping water and ate nothing.
Prosecuting Officer Uday Raj Shukla and Additional District Government Counsel (ADGC) Vinay Kumar Singh made an appearance on behalf of the prosecution.
Background of the case
On 4th December 1990, a case was filed in the Mohammadabad police station of Ghazipur against him under sections 428 (mischief), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and section 30 of the Arms Act.
Mukhtar Ansari had sought a double-barrel gun license with the district magistrate in Ghazipur on 10th June 1987. Afterwards, the district magistrate and the superintendent of police’s bogus signatures were used to secure the weapons license. When this scam was discovered on 4th December 1990, the Crime Branch-Crime Investigation Department (CB-CID) police case was submitted at the Mohammadabad police station under multiple IPC sections against the then Deputy Collector, Mukhtar Ansari, five nominees and other unknown individuals.
After an investigation, the charge sheet against Mukhtar Ansari and Gaurishankar Srivastava, the ordnance clerk at the time was presented to the court in 1997. The latter passed away during the case’s hearing and the trial against him was terminated on 18th August 2021. The prosecution has recorded the statements of ten witnesses in this case.
Mukhtar Ansari has been convicted in eight cases in the last 18 months. There are about sixty-five cases filed against him in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, New Delhi and other states. He has spent eighteen years behind bars. Now, inter-state gang leader and mafia Mukhtar Ansari has been convicted in four separate cases and a penalty has also been imposed on him.
On 5th June 2023, the court had already convicted Mukhtar Ansari to life in prison in connection with the murder of Awadhesh Rai. This MP-MLA court has fined Rs 10,000 and sentenced Mukhtar Ansari to five and a half years of hard labour in connection with his threats against a witness in the murder case of coal merchant Nand Kishore Rungta.
The former MLA was given a 10-year prison term in April 2023 in relation to the kidnapping of Vishva Hindu Parishad leader Nand Kishore Rungta and the 2005 assassination of Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Krishnanand Rai, respectively.
He was awarded a five-and-half-year prison sentence in December of last year for threatening to kill a Varanasi businessman in a 26-year-old case. He was given a 10-year prison term on 10th October of last year in connection with a Gangsters Act case that was brought in Ghazipur in 2010. In a 1991 murder and rioting case launched in Varanasi, he was found guilty and given a life sentence on 5th June. He was given a 10-year prison term on 29th April in a Gangsters Act case pertaining to the 2005 murder of BJP MLA Krishnand Rai. He was given a 10-year prison term on 15th December 2022, for his involvement with a Ghazipur-filed Gangsters Act case from 1996.
In 1999, the Hazratganj police station in Lucknow filed a Gangsters Act grievance, for which he was sentenced to five years in prison on 23rd September 2022. He was given a seven-year prison sentence on 21st September 2022 for an alleged assault on a public official that occurred in 2003.
