How Mukhtar Ansari, Grandson of Freedom Fighters Linked to Cong, Jamia, Bose & Ansari Road, Turned to Crime

His grandfather MA Ansari, was a freedom fighter, a Congress president and one of the founders of the Jamia Milia University in Delhi. Delhi’s Ansari Road and Ansari Nagar near All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) are named after MA Ansari. His maternal grandfather, Brigadier Mohammad Usman, was the highest-ranking official in the Azad Hindu Fauj or the Indian National Army (INA), which led an armed struggle against the British under the leadership of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

But he, Mukhtar Ansari, ended up becoming Uttar Pradesh’s dreaded gangster, who was in jail for over 15 years, with 63 cases of land-grabbing, extortion and murder against him.

Ansari died following a cardiac arrest at UP’s Banda Medical College on Thursday night. “Ansari was admitted at 8.25pm after his health deteriorated. A team of nine doctors attended to him, but despite all efforts, he passed away following cardiac arrest," states the bulletin by the medical college.

“Death of mafia don Ansari is indeed the end of an era in UP’s history of Bahubalis. If we talk about UP’s Bahubalis, Mukhtar and Atiq Ahmed used to top the notorious criminals’ list of UP Police. Thankfully, it is all passe now," Brij Lal, former Director General of Police (DGP) of UP, told News18.

How did a person with such an illustrious background enter the world of crime?

FORAY INTO CRIME

Born in 1963, Ansari, whose was then called Mukhtar Junior, was the youngest of three brothers. Ansari did his early schooling from Yusufpur in Ghazipur, and got a bachelor’s degree from the Ghazipur Government PG College. He was said to be a good cricketer and played many tournaments for his college.

During the early 1970s, Ansari, who then was in his teens, allegedly became a member of the Makhanu Singh gang, which clashed with another gang led by Sahib Singh over a plot in Saidpur, resulting in a series of violent incidents. Ansari also got involved in mafia activities in and around Ghazipur.

“It all began in the late 1970s and mid-1980s when the country’s economy began to grow and a lot of money was being spent on development contracts," a senior UP Police officer said. “A mad rush began to claim the contracts, by hook or by crook. Many, who found it an easy way to make money, started to go to any extent to claim the contracts. This resulted in the rise of mafias in UP," the officer added.

Lal said Ansari muscled his way to get small contracts and increased his influence, especially during the 1980s. Then came a turning point in his life in 1988.

THE UNENDING CRIMINAL RECORD

In 1978, when Ansari was 15, he was booked in a case of criminal intimidation under section 506 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). In 1986, the first case of murder was filed against him.

“In 1988, Ansari was booked in his first major case in Ghazipur for allegedly killing contractor Sachidanand Rai over a contract for the mandi parishad (agri produce market board). The murder “established" Mukhtar in east UP," said Lal.

On January 22, 1997, Nand Kishore Rungta, eastern UP’s biggest coal dealer and then treasurer of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), was murd­ered in the Bhelupur area of Varanasi. Ansari was alleged to be behind the kidnap-murder. In February 1999, Lucknow prison superintendent RK Tiwari was shot dead in front of the Raj Bhavan in Lucknow. Although there was no concrete evidence to prove Ansari’s involvement, he was said to be behind the murder.

Again, when Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Krishnanand Rai and seven others were massacred in an ambush shooting on November 29, 2005, in Ghazipur, Ansari and his associates, Munna Bajrangi, Rakesh Pandey, Sanjeev Jeeva and Maheshwari, were named in the case. Ansari was lodged in Fatehgarh jail at the time. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probed the case, but Ansari and the other accused were acquitted in July 2019, as all witnesses turned hostile.

ENTRY INTO POLITICS

Ansari began his political career as a student leader in the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in the early 1990s. He was elected as an MLA in 1996 and soon the gangster-turned-politician became the undisputed leader of Poorvanchal region by capitalising on the Muslim vote bank.

In 2007, Ansari and his brother joined the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). In 2009, Ansari fought the Lok Sabha election from Varanasi while he was in jail, but lost to a BJP candidate. A year later, the BSP expelled Ansari and his brother from the party.

YOGI GOVT’S DRIVE AGAINST MAFIAS

Officials said Ansari’s downfall began in 2017 – the year when Yogi Adityanath took charge as a UP Chief Minister and launched a stringent drive against Bahubalis and mafias. Adityanath, while addressing a public meeting in UP’s Unnao district recently, said that before 2017, mafia dons and professional criminals would proudly wander on the streets. Youths, women and traders were scared to venture out of their homes. The shops used to close before sunset and markets wore a deserted look. “After 2017, ever since our government came to power, markets remain open till late and women can step out of their homes without any fear. Mafia dons and professional criminals are now begging for their lives. There is no place for mafia dons or criminals in UP," he said.

His name was also on the list of 66 gangsters issued by the Uttar Pradesh Police last year.

THE DOWNFALL

Since September 2022, Ansari was sentenced in eight cases by different courts of Uttar Pradesh and was lodged in the Banda jail. Last year, Ghazipur’s MP-MLA court also sentenced him to 10 years’ imprisonment along with a fine of Rs 5 lakh for kidnap and murder of Rai.

Meanwhile, the latest conviction came on March 13, when he was sentenced to life in a case related to the use of forged documents to obtain an arms licence in 1990.

A Banda jail official said the back-to-back convictions were a major blow for Ansari.

UP Police officials, however, drew a parallel between Ansari and another mafia-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed, stating it marks the end of UP’s dark chapter. On April 15, 2023, Ahmed and his brother Khalid Azim alias Ashraf Ahmed were shot dead in UP’s Prayagraj.

Meanwhile, a pall of gloom descended over Ansari’s ancestral residence in the Tailor Tola locality of Yusufpur in Ghazipur district, about 400 km from Banda. The burial will be held in Kalibagh graveyard in Mahmoodabad in Ghazipur on Friday.