Gangster turned politician ‘Don’ Mukhtar Ansari has finally been lodged back into Uttar Pradesh’s Banda jail. However, there was a time when no one could have seen it coming. Once touted as the Bahubali of UP, Mukhtar Ansari commanded a reign of fear in the entire state, especially Poorvanchal during the late 90s and early 2000s. Whenever the cavalcade of Mukhtar Ansari came out, there were slogans of ‘Bahubali Bhaiya’. 20 to 30 SUVs passed through a single straight line. All the vehicles used to end at number 786 and no government machinery had the resolve to cross his way.
Ansari is an alleged history-sheeter with almost every section of the Indian Penal Code imposable on him because he has done it all – murder to extortion. The BSP MLA is currently facing 52 cases in the state and elsewhere, and 15 of them are at the trial stage. Originally a member of the Makhanu Singh gang, Ansari was quick to learn the ropes of violence, extortion and blood money in the 70s.
Ansari routinely had a run-in with Brijesh Singh, a member of Sahib Singh’s gang who later took over Ghazipur’s contract work mafia in the 1990s and became a formidable foe for him. It is imperative to know that Ansari has 38 cases lodged against him at Ghazipur police station in UP and also in Lucknow and Mau.
However, it was Ansari’s alleged hand in the murder of BJP MLA Krishna Nanda Rai in 2005 that gave him the title of ‘Bahubali’. Ansari’s gangsters on five motorcycles and a Tata Sumo allegedly surrounded Rai’s car and cut him down in a hail of gunfire. The death of Shashikant Rai, an important witness in the case, who had identified Ansari’s shooters was also allegedly planned by the Mau MLA.
Shooting down a senior BJP leader in broad daylight was a chilling episode and Ansari showed that he was willing to go to any lengths to instil his reign of fear amongst the public. Reported by TFI, BJP MLA Alka Rai and Late Krishna Nanda’s wife had recently written a letter to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, accusing the Congress government in Punjab of helping Ansari evade court proceedings.
On September 7, 2008, a rally organised in the DAV Degree College ground saw stones flung straight into the windshield of Yogi Adityanath’s car. Yogi at the time had claimed that gun rounds were fired and stones were thrown their way, allegedly by Ansari’s men but the UP police remained mum because the BSP MLA had gained some high profile political backing by then.
While Ansari’s terror plagued the ordinary citizens of UP for decades, the rise of the BJP government led by CM Yogi Adityanath has made sure that the new generation remembers Ansari as a desperate thug who resorted to riding a wheelchair, so that he could evade the clutches of Yogi and his UP jails. Reported by TFI, the Yogi administration is also set to cancel Ansari’s membership of the state Assembly under Article 190 of the constitution and that could very well be the end of Ansari saga and his tumultuous criminal history.