Varanasi: A special MP/MLA court in Varanasi on Wednesday sentenced Gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari to life imprisonment in a 36-year-old fake arms licence case.
The court had on Tuesday convicted him and had fixed March 13 for pronouncing the quantum of punishment. Ansari who is at present in Banda Jail appeared in the court through videoconferencing.
Ansari, the five-time MLA from Mau in Uttar Pradesh, was held guilty in the case under Section 428 (mischief), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 30 of the Arms Act.
Ansari had obtained licence for a double-barrel gun with fake signatures of the then District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police of Ghazipur. On December 4, 1990, when the fraud was exposed, the CB-CID lodged a complaint with the police and a case was registered under various sections of IPC against five persons, including Mukhtar Ansari, at Mohadabad police station, Ghazipur.
According to police, Ansari has around 60 criminal cases pending against him in different courts of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, New Delhi and other states. He has so far been convicted in seven cases.
- On December 15 last year, he was sentenced to five and a half years of rigorous imprisonment by the MP/MLA court in Varanasi in a case related to threatening a witness in the coal businessman Nand Kishore Rungta murder case in 1997.
- On April 29 last year, he was awarded 10 years in jail in a Gangsters Act case while his brother and co-accused, Afzal Ansari, was also given four-year imprisonment.
- On September 21, 2022, the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court sentenced him to seven years in jail for threatening a jailer and pointing a pistol at him.
- On September 23, 2022, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad HC sentenced him to five years imprisonment under a Gangsters Act.
- On October 27, 2022, he was awarded 10 years imprisonment by MPMLA court of Ghazipur in a 2009 Gangsters Act case.
- On December 15, 2022, he and his aide Bhim Singh were awarded 10-years of rigorous imprisonment by the MP-MLA court of Ghazipur in a Gangsters Act case lodged against them in 1996
