Gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai murder case

Jailed gangster-turned politician Mukhtar Ansari was on Saturday convicted and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment 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.

An MP-MLA court in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur convicted the jailed mafia don in the gangster case and sentenced him to 10 years rigorous imprisonment and also imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh on Ansari.

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 Ansari and his elder brother, BSP MP 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.