BSP MP Afzal Ansari sentenced to 4 years imprisonment in 2007 Gangster Act case, Lok Sabha disqualification imminent

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MP Afzal Ansari on Saturday was convicted in the 2007 Gangsters Act case and sentenced to four years in jail. The sentencing is likely to lead to his disqualification from the Lok Sabha and losing his MP status, in the same vein as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

An MP-MLA court today sentenced the Ansari brothers—gangster-turned politician Mukhtar Ansari and his elder brother, Lok Sabha MP Afzal Ansari—to 10 years and four years imprisonment, respectively in the in the 2005 murder of BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai and the kidnapping of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) office-bearer and coal tycoon Nandkishore Rungta in 1996.

On 22 November 2007, a case was filed under Gangsters Act against Afzal Ansari and Mukhtar Ansari in this regard in Muhammadabad Kotwali police station in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur district.

Charges were framed against the Ansari brothers on on 23 September 2022 and the court, after hearing the arguments of both the sides, had reserved its decision which was pronounced Saturday.

The conviction and sentencting will likely lead to Afzal Ansari being disqualified from the Lok Sabha under Representation of the People Act which mandates disqualification of any member who is convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for two years or more.

Afzal Ansari’s borther, mafia don Mukhtar Ansari, had been booked for murder under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in a case registered against him at the Mohammadabad Police Station in Ghazipur.

Mukhtar and Afzal Ansari had been booked under the Gangster Act in 2007 for the above mentioned murder and kidnapping cases.

On January 18, the Allahabad High Court dismissed the March 15 order of the Ghazipur MP/MLA Court, which allowed Ansari to be kept in a superior-class jail in Banda.

Dismissing the special court’s order, the HC had said Ansari wasn’t legally entitled to get a superior class in jail.

On December 15 last year, a special Gangster court in Ghazipur, handed a 10-year jail term to Ansari and his associate Bhim Singh after convicting them in five cases of murder and attempt to murder, including the killing of police constable Raghuvansh Singh and a life bid on a former Ghazipur additional SP of among others.

Earlier, on September 21, 2022, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court had convicted Mukhtar Ansari for pointing a gun at Lucknow district prison jailer SK Awasthi in 2003.

Two days later, on September 23, the dreaded mafia don was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 50,000, by the same bench in a 1999 case under the Gangster Act.