Mukhtar Ansari gets another life sentence, this time for fake arms licence

This is the eighth case in which the former MLA has been convicted and sentenced in Uttar Pradesh in the last two years

Gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari was sentenced to life imprisonment in the fake arms licence case on Wednesday.

A Varanasi court on March 12 had convicted him in a case for obtaining an arms licence by use of forged documents in 1990. The former MLA was held guilty by a special MP/MLA court. He was held guilty by the court under IPC sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating) 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and under the Arms Act.

This was the eighth case in which Ansari was convicted and sentenced by a court in Uttar Pradesh in the last couple of years. In December last year, Ansari was sentenced to five-and-a-half year's imprisonment for a death threat to a coal trader in 1997. Ansari, who is an accused in several cases, has been lodged in Banda jail since 2021 after being brought from a Punjab Jail.

 

In October last year, he was given 10 years in prison in a Gangsters Act case filed in 2010 in Ghazipur. In June, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in a 1991 murder and rioting case in Varanasi. In April, he was sentenced to ten years in jail for the murder of the then BJP MLA Krishnand Rai in 2005 in another Gangsters Act case.

According to information provided by UP police headquarters, Mukhtar has 65 cases, including that of murder, extortion, and criminal conspiracy, lodged against him at several police stations across the state. He has been convicted in seven of these cases.

Ansari was a five-time MLA from the Mau Assembly constituency. The gangster-turned-politician did not contest the 2022 assembly elections and his seat was won by his son Abbas Ansari from the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP).