Jailed Mukhta Ansari handed over to UP Police team

Tribune News Service

Ropar, April 6

The Uttar Pradesh Police took the custody of gangster-turned-MLA Mukhtar Ansari from the Ropar jail authorities here today. A team from Banda, led by a DSP with 37 policemen, arrived at the Police Lines here around 4.30 am.

After staying there for seven hours, the convoy of eight vehicles, including an ambulance, reached the jail around 12 noon, where the authorities had beefed up security by barricading the entrance.

After completing the formalities, the Uttar Pradesh Police took the MLA away around 2.10 pm in an ambulance, manned by a doctor, paramedic and a helper.

Keeping in view the presence of a large number of mediapersons in front of main gate of the jail, the convoy used gate No. 2 to exit the premises for Banda, 900 km away. Ansari had been lodged at the Ropar jail since January 2019 after he was brought by the Punjab Police from the Banda jail on production warrant for allegedly demanding ransom from a businessman.

After the Ropar jail authorities refused to hand him over to the UP Police, the Yogi Adityanath government moved the Supreme Court. On March 26, the apex court ordered the Punjab Government to shift the MLA to the Uttar Pradesh jail. Following this, the Punjab Home Department had written to the UP Government asking it to take Ansari away by April 8.

Meanwhile, the controversial private ambulance that Ansari took to appear in a Mohali court from the Ropar jail on March 31 was taken away by the UP Police last evening. The ambulance was found abandoned 10 km from Ropar on the Anandpur Sahib road on Sunday. It was found registered on fake documents at Barabanki in the name of a private hospital in Mau, from where Ansari is a BSP MLA.

A section of the media had reported the chassis number of the seized ambulance had been tampered with. Ropar SSP Akhil Chaudhary, however, claimed the police inspected the vehicle but did not find any tampering.

‘CBI must probe MLA’s prison stay’

Chandigarh: Former Vidhan Sabha Deputy Speaker Bir Devinder Singh on Tuesday demanded a CBI inquiry into Mukhtar Ansari’s links in the upper echelon of power in Punjab. “It’s reprehensible that Punjab Jail authorities strongly resisted the UP Police move to give back Ansari’s custody. The CBI should identify those behind making his two-year stay in Ropar jail comfortable and unravel the ulterior motive to retain Ansari for such a long duration in Ropar jail,” he said. TNS