Lucknow. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has started a campaign to break the back of the mafia in the state, as a result of which the work which could not be done in 44 years has been done in three days. Hardcore criminal Mukhtar Ansari, once acquitted by lower courts due to lack of witnesses and evidence, was sentenced on September 21 for threatening the jailer. At the same time, on Friday, the Lucknow Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court, finding him guilty in another case, has sentenced Mukhtar.
Mukhtar is counted among those criminals of the state who were patronized by the Congress and then the SP and BSP governments from the 80s to the 90s. The ground under the feet of this mafia, who has traveled from a katta to a politician, started slipping when the Yogi government was formed in Uttar Pradesh. The government effectively defended Mukhtar in the High Court by coordinating the police and the prosecution to demolish Mukhtar’s criminal fortress. Due to this, he was sentenced to five years in the Gangster Act case registered in 1999. Also, in this 23-year-old case, the court has also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on him.
A single bench of Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh of Lucknow Bench gave this decision on the appeal of the state government. The state government had challenged the order of the trial court to acquit Mukhtar in this gangster case. An FIR has been registered in this case in the year 1999 in Hazratganj Kotwali of Lucknow.
In this case, there is a five-year sentence
Jail Superintendent Ramakant Tiwari, who was known for reforming the jail, was murdered on February 4, 1999. He was returning from the residence of the then District Magistrate Sadakant at seven o’clock in the evening. As soon as he reached near the Raj Bhavan, the miscreants opened fire, due to which he was killed. In this case, more than a dozen people including Bahubali MLA Mukhtar Ansari, the then famous student leader Abhay Singh, currently the SP MLA from Ayodhya Gosaiganj, were named.
What was the case of threatening the jailer in 2003
Earlier on September 21, the Lucknow Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court had sentenced jailer SK Awasthi in a case of intimidation in the year 2003. In this case, Jailor Awasthi had ordered to search the people who had come to meet Mukhtar in jail. On this Mukhtar threatened to kill him. Along with abusing him, a pistol was also pointed at him.
Yogi government brought mafia from Punjab to UP after 22 months of tireless efforts
When the Yogi government started cracking down on Mafia Mukhtar and his accomplices, the then Congress government of Punjab took him to Ropar jail in Punjab by registering a fake case against him to protect him. In that jail, Mukhtar lived with his wife as the only VIP in a barrack of twenty people. When the UP government wanted to bring Mukhtar back to Uttar Pradesh, the Congress government created a lot of obstacles. She did not want Mukhtar Ansari to be transferred to a UP jail. The Congress government saved Mukhtar Ansari for two and a half years. At the same time, the Yogi government, which is trying to destroy the criminal empire of the mafia and get its crimes accounted, worked tirelessly for 22 months to bring Mukhtar and went to the Supreme Court. Along with strong lobbying, as a result of which he was brought back to UP in April 2021 and since then he is lodged in Banda jail. During this entire incident, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and Congress leader Priyanka Vadra kept silent on the whole matter, adopting a sympathetic attitude towards a dreaded criminal to give edge to their politics of appeasement.
Bulldozer on illegal property of mafia
Police have seized or demolished illegally acquired properties worth more than Rs 1057 crore of Mukhtar and his accomplices. UP Police has so far seized properties worth more than Rs 248 crore of Mukhtar, while bulldozers have run on illegal assets worth more than Rs 282 crore. The government has attached properties worth Rs 246 crore 65 lakh 90 thousand 939 of the mafia and its close associates under the Gangster Act. Properties worth about Rs 281 crore have been either liberated or demolished from illegal occupation.