On Friday (December 15), a Varanasi MP/MLA court sentenced mafia-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari to five and a half years in prison for threatening a witness in the kidnapping of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad treasurer. The court also fined Ansari Rs 10,000 for threatening Mahavir Prasad Rungta, the brother of coal businessman and VHP treasurer Nand Kishore Rungta, who was kidnapped from his Varanasi office on January 22, 1997. This is the jailed mafia’s seventh conviction since September last year.
Mukhtar Ansari, who was visibly upset after hearing the ruling, reportedly began pleading with the judge. Mukhtar Ansari sat with his head down and his hands on his forehead as soon as the sentence was pronounced by the court. Following this, Ansari appealed to the judge, saying, ‘Judge Sahab, please have mercy so that all my sentences proceed simultaneously.’ However, in the decision given by the court, it was already mentioned.
Nand Kishore Rungta, a coal businessman from Jawahar Nagar of Bhelupur police station area of Varanasi, was murdered after being
kidnapped on January 22, 1997. Reports say that Nand Kishore was killed even after the family paid a ransom of Rs 1.25 crore to the kidnapper. After this, on the evening of November 5, 1997, Nand Kishore Rungta’s brother Mahavir Prasad Rungta, a witness in the case, received bomb threats on his landline not to file a complaint with the police.
A case in this regard was registered at Bhelupur police station on December 1 of that year on Mahavir Rungta’s complaint. After the investigation, the police presented the charge sheet against Mukhtar Ansari before the court on July 3, 1998. “Mukhtar threatened to bomb our home if we did not stop pursuing the case of kidnapping of my brother before the CBI. The CBI probe into the Rungta kidnapping case had already been accepted on the application of his wife,” Mahavid Rungta had said in his complaint.
In the last 15 months, Ansari has been convicted in seven cases. In the same vein, a Varanasi court convicted Mukhtar on Friday for threatening the Rungta family. The erstwhile gangster was connected via video conferencing during the hearing. Following the hearing, Ansari was sent to the solitary barrack.
