New Delhi: The Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government has assured the Supreme Court that “necessary augmentation of security as needed will be made,” to ensure that no harm is caused to jailed former legislator Mukhtar Ansari while in custody.
The UP government made the submission in court while responding to a writ petition recently filed by Ansari’s family apprehending that the government run by Adityanath was planning to assassinate him in Banda jail where he is currently lodged. In a writ petition filed under Article 32 of the constitution, Ansari’s younger son Umar Ansari had on December 4 sought protection for his father from the apex court in the form of a transfer from the Banda jail to a prison outside the state. Mukhtar faced an “immediate and grave threat to his life and limb” in UP, said Umar.
While the state government assured the SC that it would augment Ansari’s security, its counsel sought time to obtain instructions from the state on the question of shifting Ansari to a jail outside UP.
A division bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and Sanjay Karol, while hearing the matter on December 15, also directed the state government to provide the court with a current status of the trial in the cases involving Ansari. The matter would be next heard on January 16, 2024.
In his petition, Umar Ansari had expressed concern for his father’s well-being by drawing attention to the murder of former Lok Sabha MP and tainted politician Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf Ahmad on live television while they were being escorted by a team of policemen for a routine medical check-up in Prayagraj on April 15. Two weeks before the brothers were murdered by three mysterious assailants in presence of police – who despite being in the line of fire, for reasons only known to them, did not shoot the culprits in self-defence – the SC had dismissed Atiq’s plea seeking protection during his custody with the UP police in the Umesh Pal murder case. Umesh Pal was a key witness in the murder case of BSP MLA Raju Pal, in which the ex-MP was accused.
‘Larger conspiracy’
Arguing for Ansari, senior counsel Kapil Sibal submitted that despite directions by the Allahabad high court to ensure the safety of Ansari, Sanjeev Maheshwari alias Jeeva – a co-accused of Ansari in the murder of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai in 2005 – was shot dead inside a courtroom in Lucknow on June 8, 2023, while he was being produced from jail custody in court.
The Allahabad high court had in May 2023, on a petition filed by Ansari’s wife, directed the DGP UP to ensure her husband’s security inside the jail as well as outside it. The court had directed the police to ensure that “full security” be given to Ansari while shifting him from one jail to another and while producing him before any court from jail and on the way. The HC had taken into consideration the murder of Atiq Ahmad and his brother while passing the directions, and said:
“Media person would not be permitted to interview him. He would be accompanied by the police personnel during his ingress and egress from jail. This order is being passed seeing the recent episode which occurred in the State of Uttar Pradesh, wherein in the garb of media persons some criminals had killed two under trial prisoners, who were in the custody of the Police Personnel, which matters are pending before the Apex Court.”
In his petition, Mukhtar’s son Umar accused the Adityanath government of taking an “inimical position” against the former MLA and hatching a “larger conspiracy” to eliminate him while he is in jail. The threat perception was based on “reliable information” Mukhtar had received that his life was in grave danger and that there “is a conspiracy afoot involving several actors within the state establishment” to assassinate him in Banda jail.
‘Gangster Mukhtar’
A five-time former MLA from Mau in eastern UP, Mukhtar has for long been under the radar of the Adityanath government, which after coming to power in 2017 unleashed the police and the force of the administration against him, his family and supporters. The state government designated Mukhtar a “gangster” and head of gang IS191, and lodged numerous criminal cases against him, his sons, including current MLA Abbas Ansari, his brother and former MP Afzal Ansari and other associates. The government has seized, demolished and freed from “illegal occupation” property worth Rs 605 crores belonging to the Ansari family, said police. Out of this, about Rs 318 crores worth of property was seized by the government under Section 14 (1) of the contentious Gangsters Act, which empowers the district magistrate to attach properties of people after designating them as gangsters. Under the Adityanath rule, this law has been used without restraint against suspected criminals as well as opposition leaders and ordinary citizens.
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The police said it had also demolished, seized or freed property from the Ansaris under other laws worth Rs 287 crores. Additionally, the police said it had shut down businesses – tender, contract and firms – linked to Ansari amounting to Rs 215 crores.
The police have shot dead five persons linked to Ansari in alleged encounters and taken legal action against 292 persons linked to him; booked 164 of his associates under the Gangsters Act, six under the National Security Act, 67 under the Gangsters Act, expelled 60 of his associates from their districts, arrested 186 and cancelled 175 weapon licences.
Various cases
In the last 15 months, he has been convicted in seven different cases. The seventh conviction came on December 15, when a court in Varanasi sentenced him to six years and five months in prison for a case lodged against him in 1997 on charges of criminal intimidation. The other convictions include a life sentence awarded to him by a Varanasi court in June for the murder of Awadesh Rai, the brother of Congress state president Ajay Rai, and the 10 years imprisonment awarded to him for kidnapping a Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader in connection with the murder of Krishnanand Rai in 2005.
Ansari has 65 cases lodged against him, said UP police, adding that it was trying to get him convicted in the 21 cases he was facing trial in through “excellent coordination” and constant monitoring.
In his petition, Umar Ansari said that out of the persons accused of murdering Rai, four, including Jeeva (mentioned above) had already been murdered. While Firdaus was gunned down by the STF in 2006, Prem Prakash Singh alias Munna Bajrangi was murdered in Baghpat jail in 2018 by another convicted gangster Sunil Rathi. More than a week before his murder Bajrangi’s wife Seema Singh had in a press conference in Lucknow on June 29 that year alleged that the UP police along with some political leaders and officials were conspiring to get him eliminated outside the jail in a “fake encounter.” Singh had also claimed that during his stay in Jhansi jail there had been an attempt to poison her husband.
Another aide of Mukhtar, Rakesh Pandey was shot dead by the police in an alleged “encounter” in August 2020 after the SUV he was purportedly travelling in along with four other persons crashed into a tree in the early hours of a Sunday morning. Pandey’s family had accused the police of picking him up from home in Lucknow and then killing him.