BSP MP Afzal Ansari sentenced to 4 years in jail, likely to lose Lok Sabha membership

Earlier in the day, the same court had convicted and sentenced Afzal’s younger brother, jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari, to 10 years imprisonment in an Uttar Pradesh Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act case lodged at the same Mohammadabad police station in Ghazipur district in 2007. Mukhtar is lodged at Banda district jail.

“After court held Afzal Ansari guilty in UP Gangsters’ Act case, he was taken into custody. The court sentenced Afzal Ansari to four years imprisonment and also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh on him,” said government counsel, Ghazipur, Neeraj Srivastava, adding that there were seven prosecution witnesses in the case.

Earlier, Srivastava had said that Mukhtar had 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,” Srivastava said, adding that there were 10 prosecution witnesses in the case. This was the fourth case in which five-time MLA Mukhtar was convicted.

“We would file appeal against the judgment in cases of Afzal Ansari and Mukhtar Ansari,” defence counsel Liyakat Ali said.

The UP Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act cases against Mukhtar and Afzal Ansari were lodged in November 2007 by the Ghazipur police. According to the prosecution, the case was lodged on the ground of the murder of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai and six others in the Bhawarkol area of Ghazipur district in November 2005.  The murder case was investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation at the direction of the Allahabad High Court. In 2019, a special CBI court in Delhi had acquitted Afzal, Mukhtar and five others in the Krishnanand Rai murder case.

As per police records, there were seven cases lodged against Afzal Ansari and the last was filed in 2014 under the Public Representatives’ Act. In a few cases, the police found no evidence against him and expunged or filed a closure report.

Meanwhile, Mukhtar, a history-sheeter of Mohammadabad police station in Ghazipur with 61 cases against him, 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.

Mukhtar 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 Mukhtar to seven years imprisonment in a 2003 case of assault on a jailer. A day later, the high court, in another case, sentenced Mukhtar 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 Mukhtar 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.