On Wednesday morning, Uttar Pradesh police brought gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari to Banda Prison from Rupnagar Prison in Punjab.
Police arrested the BSP lawmaker on Tuesday acting on a March 26 Supreme Court order that ordered Ansari’s transfer to Uttar Pradesh prison for trial.
According to UP police, around 52 cases are registered against Ansari in Uttar Pradesh and other states. He spent more than two years in the Punjab prison.
His wife Afshan Ansari, fearing for the life of her husband, addressed the highest court on Tuesday to ask the UP police to “not kill” her husband in a bogus meeting and to allow him to undergo a “free and fair trial”.
Earlier in February, the UP government indicted the Punjab government in the Supreme Court, alleging that the latter (the Punjab) was in collusion with Ansari who is wanted at the UP on various criminal cases. The government of Uttar Pradesh had argued that Ansari was “vehemently defended by the state of the Punjab” and enjoyed in the Punjab prison.
For his part, Ansari has apprehended a threat to his life in Uttar Pradesh and has sought to appear in cases only by video conference.
The higher court rejected Ansari’s plea requesting the transfer of the pending cases against him in Uttar Pradesh to Delhi.
Ansari, the MP for Mau, has been held in a Ropar prison in Punjab since January 2019, where he was named in an extortion case. Several production warrants were issued against Ansari, but the Punjab police did not allow him to be transferred to Uttar Pradesh for health reasons.
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